


Wearing a fire and waiting on the flood

by sandyk



Series: Pacey's Creek [2]
Category: Dawson's Creek
Genre: Abusive Parents, F/M, Mental Illness, flashback to rape, secondary Dawson/Andie, secondary brief Joey/Jack, secondary very brief Joey/Pacey, teenagers have sex with other teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 05:35:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7672135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the sequel to the first season Dawson's Creek AU (Sometimes I am forgiveness), Joey goes to Paris and comes home, Jack and Andie come to town, everybody studies and goes to class. (And other stuff happens.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Not mine, no profit garnered. You have to read Sometimes I Am Forgiveness for this to make any sense. Title and opening quote from Alisha Bruton's How Not To Clean A Fish. For the setting in the GWYO bingo setting card, seen at the bottom. I tried my best with the PSAT thing, but I'm sure errors crept in because I'm old and it was hard to google. I know Kerry didn't leave her husband Jerry (really, show? really?) until season 3, but I forgot writing season 1, so it's now in this AU's canon that it happens a year earlier. Thanks to A for beta help!

_I am a woman standing outside a house  
wearing a fire and waiting on the flood_

 

January 3rd to February 28, Paris:

 

Joey could see the Eiffel Tower over Ethan's shoulder. He was her height, not taller or shorter, and she had clear view as he kissed her neck and his hands were up her shirt, his fingers playing with her nipples. It felt electric. She felt electric, like everything was hyper real. She had a view of the Eiffel Tower. They'd been in Paris three days and Joey Potter was looking at the Eiffel Tower. It wasn't a set or a picture on green screen, it was the real Eiffel Tower. 

Ethan was Ethan Park, of San Diego, California, and being Park, kept being sat next to Potter in their classes and was funny and sweet. He made her smile even when she was so nervous she would burst. This was their first time making out and she rocked against his hips, feeling how hard he was. The moon was behind the Eiffel Tower. 

Ethan stepped back and said, "Whoa, we should slow it down." He rubbed his hands on jeans and adjusted himself. 

"Yeah," she said. "You're totally right." She was upstairs and tucked into her dorm bed before she even thought about Dawson. She was horrible, she was an awful person. She was an awful person in Paris. Dawson would understand. 

Joey was the only one of the 50 kids in the program from a city no one had ever heard of. Everyone else was from Oakland, Des Moines, Seattle, even New York City and Los Angeles. Joey said "Capeside" and everyone looked at her like she was a country hick about to bust her overalls and straw hat. She gritted her teeth and felt herself shifting into her fighting stance, as Dawson called it. The part of her that wouldn't back down or take no for an answer. At least it was good for her grades.

Only a third of the kids passed the French proficiency exam. They all got to take all their classes in French and were immediately complete snobs about the whole thing. Joey literally never spoke to any of them again for the whole trip, by their choice, not hers.

Joey took two hours of French every morning, and then in the afternoon they had English classes and European History classes. There was tons of homework. They all lived in a dorm together and as Ethan joked, they walked around Paris with big neon signs saying fifteen year old tourists. Most days, even on the weekend, Joey ate all three meals at the dorm cafeteria. She wasn't made of money, she had some from Bessie but she felt guilty using it because she felt like she was taking food from Alexander. Mostly she had the traveler checks from Mr and Mrs Leery that she spent sparingly. 

Pacey had apparently hooked everybody with email addresses from the community college because she got emails from everybody nearly every other day. Even Dawson. He sounded sad then distracted. He stopped writing pages and pages after the first two weeks. He was getting over her, she was sure. 

She would get up, shower, and get dressed staring out her window. Sometimes she thought if someone looked up they would see her naked for part of that, but it was only the city looking back at her. It was Paris. Joey Potter was in Paris. She reviewed her notes at breakfast, went to class, earned her As, went back to the dorm for lunch, reviewed her notes, went to her classes, earned her As. Then she did her homework and tried to read ahead. She checked her email at the computer lab in the basement of the dorm. 

She was the happiest she'd been since her mother had died. She didn't want to admit it, because she'd been really happy when she and Dawson were first dating, but this was Paris. She was also incredibly lonely. She'd hung out with Ethan and made out with him and she tried to make friends. She wrote to Jen, I suck at making friends.

Jen answered in her email: You and me both. I don't know what I would have done if Grams didn't live next door to Dawson and therefore ensure I met you and Pacey. 

She and Ethan went out to a cafe for dinner. They were both overachievers so they brought some of their homework to talk about. Joey had told him about her study group at home. Ethan left as soon as they finished eating. Joey stayed. The wait staff didn't care since she kept ordering cappuccinos. She was likely going to vibrate her way home. 

She looked around realized as homesick as she was, she was still doing it. She was lonely, but she was here and succeeding. She'd told her father she hated him and she felt like he couldn't have loved her. He couldn't have acted like he did, done what he'd done, and loved her or Bessie or even her mother. He'd replied with some nonsense about the things humans are capable of. 

But she was in Paris. Joey Potter, with the drug dealer dad from the country hick small town, she was in Paris. She couldn't help smiling. 

She could get out. Getting out of Capeside had always felt like a goal and a dream, not a reality that she could have for herself. She didn't have to visualize what it would be like to live somewhere where she didn't know everyone and everyone didn't know her place, she was living it. She woke up to it every day. She was anonymous, the only history that mattered to anyone who met her was the one she supplied. 

She went to the Louvre by herself. She just went and picked a room and sat there trying to absorb the art. It was overwhelming. It was beautiful and jarring and she couldn't even breathe looking at some of it. She went back every day. 

After the first week, she bought a sketchpad and pencils, so she looked like all the art students she saw. She did the same things they did, she tried to figure out how they created that beauty. At then the end of her first month, she called Bessie and asked her to find an afterschool art class. "I bet you're as good as Mom," Bessie said. 

She even managed to make a friend. She and another girl, Amy, liked to go running in the morning. Amy was from Detroit. They would practice their French and push each other to go faster. "So much butter," Amy said. "So much delicious butter in all our food."

Dawson emailed her a month into her trip to say he had a girlfriend. She read it numbly. She'd been making out with Ethan three days after she arrived. The night before she got the email, she'd given Ethan a handjob back at his dorm room. But he wasn't her boyfriend. They were like friends who made out. What happens in Paris stays in Paris, she thought.

She realized Pacey and Jen had probably been censoring their emails. She sighed. It made sense. They were good friends. She wouldn't really have wanted them to do anything differently. 

A week before it was time to go home, Dawson emailed again to tell her he'd had sex. She wanted to reply that she didn't think much of his prose, way too over the top. But she might have written the same thing to him if it had been her. 

She'd stopped talking to Ethan two weeks earlier when she found out he had a girlfriend. A girlfriend he was writing and calling and not mentioning the time he'd spent with his hand in Joey's panties. 

Then it was time to go home. One last run with Amy. Finals she was sure she aced. One last afternoon sitting in Louvre. She was Joey Potter and she'd been in Paris. She didn't go home scared, she didn't curl into a academic ball and never go out. 

She cried on the flight home and hoped no one noticed. 

!!

January 3rd:

"So," Jen said, looking over at Pacey, naked and sprawled against the tub. "We've been doing this a while, what's your favorite position?"

"I like," Pacey said, his hand idly touching his dick. "I like when you sit in my lap and on my dick and I can see your face and kiss you and hold your perfect tits."

"You're a poet," Jen said. 

"The next DH Lawrence," Pacey said. "So what's yours?"

"With you, I'm going to admit I've found a new one. I love when we're both on our side, and you're behind me, and you fuck me like we're spooning."

Pacey crawled on his knees to her, kissing her. He said, "You're a very sentimental girl, Jen."

"Ha," she said. "With a new year, I think we need new challenges. How do you feel about tying me up?"

Pacey frowned and sat back. He looked troubled and Jen was furious. "Come on, Pacey, stop it. I hate when you analyze me and decide things about me and then you're so fucking judgmental."

"Hey, chill," Pacey said. "This is not about you. My distaste comes from my father's attempts to scare all of my sisters off sex forever. He and Dougie used to make sure to describe all the worst cases from Capeside to Boston to Providence and back again over dinner with significant glances at the girls about men like that. They all went on to have sex, mind you, but I managed to pick up a raging case of boner killing when it comes to tying up women."

"I'll accept that," Jen said. It sounded true. She said, "Can I tie you up?"

Pacey smiled. "Oh, that sounds fun."

The next night Jen used a robe tie from her home to tie Pacey's wrists together and then loop it around the faucet of the tub. He said, "This feels like a stress position for torture."

"Maybe," Jen said. 

It was some of the best sex she'd ever had, really. She couldn't believe how hot it got her being completely in charge. Pacey seemed to love it, too. 

Of course, the next day at school, he was complaining about his sore shoulders. She glared at him but he still said, "So very sore."

Dawson walked up and said, "Really? What from?"

"His counseling gig," Jen said. "He has to sit for hours."

"And they don't give us headsets," Pacey said. 

Dawson said, "But some of those students have to be from Capeside. Wouldn't they remember a name like Pacey?" 

"I was wondering that, too," Jen said.

"I use a different name," Pacey said.

"Is it Dawson?" Jen smirked.

"Actually it's Wyatt," Pacey said. "W like Witter makes it easier for me to remember."

"But you know their names," Dawson said. 

"That's why they don't let just anybody do it," Pacey said. 

"Hhiiiiiii," a blonde girl came in towards them, waving. "Dawson, are these your friends?"

The only reason Jen saw the teeny tiny shift in Pacey's eyes was because she was staring at him intently. Pacey said, "Dawson, did you say we liked you again? Man, you gotta stop telling people that."

Dawson smiled, he never took those things seriously. Jen thought she and Pacey would always wonder if that kind of joke was a hidden truth. 

Dawson said, "This is Andie McPhee, she and her brother Jack just transferred this semester. She jumped out of her seat with glee when I mentioned study group."

"Man, we let *you* in," Pacey said to Dawson. "And you are a sad replacement for Joey."

"Don't I know it," Dawson said, still smiling. "But Andie is very focused on her studies."

"I really am," Andie said. "I take all my classes very seriously and I very much want to join your study group and study with you guys. I'm also bringing Jack, you'll like him. Everyone likes him," she said with a wide grin. 

"Wait, so we're going from 3 to 5 people at my house once a week?" Jen looked at Andie, whose face comically fell.

"Should I have been asking you? I'm so sorry," Andie said. "Dawson! Why didn't you tell me?" 

"It's right next door," Dawson said. 

"Jen, don't tease the poor girl," Pacey said. "Of course you're welcome at study group. This is Jen, by the way, we meet at her house. Her grandmother makes snacks sometimes. I'm Pacey." He offered his hand and Andie shook it vigorously. 

"Snacks are awesome! I can bring some," Andie said. 

!!

Pacey's job at the counseling center required a once a week meeting with one of the psych grad students who came down from Providence. Pacey was assigned to Brad, earnest African American. He had an accent like LL Cool J so Pacey assumed the guy was from Queens. Sometimes he felt like Dawson, constructing a whole story about a stranger and one that was probably completely and utterly wrong, shaped by all of Pacey's conscious and unconscious biases. Brad never talked about himself. 

He got Pacey to talk, though. First it was his family, then it was Jen. Then back to his family. This week Pacey started with, "I've sort of become friends with a girl who's called in here twice, twice to me that I know of."

"Sort of?"

"My best friend Dawson is hot for her so he invited her to our study group and she wants to have friends so. Wait, that's not fair. She's pretty funny and I think Jen and Dawson genuinely like her," Pacey said.

"But not you," Brad said in his typical even tone.

"I don't dislike her, but I feel dishonest whenever I'm around her because I know all this stuff about her she wouldn't tell any of us. And I worry someone's going to mention I'm volunteering here and she'll feel like I kept it from her. It's been two weeks, I think I'm having nightmares about it."

"You're joking about the nightmares," Brad said. "So now you have to tell me what your most recent actual nightmare was about."

Pacey sighed. "I'm being forced underwater and no one is coming for me, and I see an octopus reaching for Jen and killing her. Then I woke up and I must have made some noise because Kerry knocked on the door and was actually nice. Then she said to keep it down next time so it didn't wake her kids."

Brad nodded. "You should tell Andie where you volunteer. Then make sure she knows you would never repeat anything you heard on the phone from someone calling in. She can draw her conclusions from there."

"That's a great idea, Brad. I should go to Brown University and get great ideas like that," Pacey said. 

Brad stared at him. Pacey mumbled, "Sorry." 

Brad said, "You know you make jokes like that because you expect me to think you would never get into a school like Brown. I think you're wrong, but I doubt you'll believe me. So head out, see you next week."

He told Andie the next day before their Spanish class. "See, the thing you should absolutely know is that I would never repeat anything said to me or even tell my friends if someone we knew had hypothetically called."

"So you'd just sit there and lord this knowledge over some poor unsuspecting person --"

"Hey, chill. Have you seen any lording over?" 

Andie took a deep breath. She said, "No." She still walked huffily into Spanish and glared at him intermittently.

That night as he was leaving Jen's after a perfectly respectable dinner with Grams where the closest he came to sin was holding Jen's hand under the table, he ran into Dawson. "You were waiting for me," Pacey said, getting on his bike.

"Andie spent 25 straight minutes grilling me to see if you ever said anything about her to me. Do you know what that's about? Did you say something to her about me?"

"I have theories why she might be questioning you so closely, but who knows for sure? Maybe she can get extra credit for writing my biography. Possibly she likes you like you like her and she's trying to make sure she's getting the best friend seal of approval," Pacey said.

"That sounds nothing like Andie," Dawson said. He looked back at his house. "Do you really think she likes me?"

"Sure," Pacey said. "You like her, she's not filing for a restraining order."

"Come on, I'm not that bad," Dawson said. 

Pacey laughed. "Yeah, you're not *that* bad. Okay. You don't spend part of every single day having deep philosophical discussions the likes of which you've only had before with Joey. It's every other day with Andie."

"She's pretty great," Dawson said. 

"Except for the school part, almost the exact opposite of your last love of your life," Pacey said.

Dawson sighed. "I bet they have more in common than I think. I dunno, I get the impression Andie's super perky routine is a facade."

"Well, there's no point in puncturing her facade unless you're ready to help her. Don't do it for the point of solving a mystery," Pacey said. He was pretty sure he knew exactly what Andie was hiding and he really hoped she kept calling in when she felt bad.

"I wouldn't, Pacey," Dawson said. "Yes, I find her sexually attractive, but that doesn't mean I'm not attracted to who she is as a person. I haven't become some moral reprobate who uses women and tosses them aside."

"Sometimes," Pacey said, "You can just say you're hot for her." He had been biking in circles while Dawson talked but he had homework. "Like I am going to say gotta go, instead of I have more pressing matters at home I must attend to."

The next morning, Pacey heard his name called for a meeting in the principal's office, he automatically thought he'd done something. It took him a minute or two to remember he'd done nothing. Instead he found himself in a room with Andie and one of the class eggheads. The principal looked at Pacey oddly and then he said, "The PSAT results have come in this morning, you and your fellow students will get them later today but I've asked you all here because your scores were high enough that you, all of you, qualify as semifinalists for the National Merit Scholarships. Because the program weighs results by state, it is particularly difficult to qualify here in Massachusetts. "

Pacey said, "No shit?" 

Andie was bounding up and down with glee again. 

"Yes, Mr. Witter," the principal said, looking at him suspiciously. He handed Pacey his results. 221 out of a possible 240. Pacey just stared at the paper. 

Andie came over and gave him a hug. "Your parents will be so happy," she said.

"That's not true at all," Pacey said. He turned to the principal and said, "Did Joey make it?"

"Yes, this school has 4 of you, which is the most we've had in many, many years. Including Josephine Potter." 

He nodded and walked out numbly. It made no sense. Pacey was willing to acknowledge he was not as much of an imbecile as his parents and friends thought, but National Merit Semifinalist was insane. 

Jen jumped up and kissed him at lunch. "I have the smartest boyfriend," she said, squealing. "Seriously, I knew you could do it."

Pacey said, "Why didn't you tell me?"

Dawson said, "I think it's fantastic, too." He was holding Andie's hand. "Pacey, it's great, for real. You were always capable of this, it's the smarts we all knew you had."

"Everyone's gonna ask how I cheated," Pacey said. "I think the principal almost did."

Andie said, "Look, Pacey, I know you need to adjust this score to your mental image of yourself, but you didn't cheat. Everyone at this table knows that."

Jack smirked at Pacey. "I'm not convinced."

"Jack," Andie said. "Take that back."

"I'm fine, Andie," Pacey said. "I get that Jack is joking, me smart, can read sarcasm and gentle mocking." 

At his locker, later, Dawson came up to him. "So I asked her out," Dawson said. 

Pacey said, "I'm shocked. Did she say yes? Cause that would be shocking, too."

"I know, I know, it's a predictable cliche, but something about us really clicks to me," Dawson said. "She's beautiful, she makes me laugh, we talk for hours."

"Is that because she talks for 90% of the time?" Pacey grinned.

"She's chatty," Dawson said, smiling. "She's hyperverbal. I like it. She rambles and she has these hilarious tangents, and she has a huge heart. She's great."

"I'm glad for you," Pacey said.

Dawson patted Pacey's shoulder. "I know you're worried about how your parents will react, Pace. Even if they don't say it, seriously, we're proud of you."

Jen dragged him to her home after school. "Grams is back in two hours. We have time for celebratory sex with my genius boyfriend," Jen said. 

"Finally, part of this that makes sense and I can enjoy," Pacey said. 

He went down on her and she moaned for nearly a minute when she came. She sat up unsteadily and said, "I'd give that a 240. Come over here and let's fuck in your favorite position."

"You're my favorite girl," Pacey said. It was pretty magnificent sex. 

So he was only slightly off-kilter when he got home. He was sure somehow he would get in trouble for this. He went straight to his room and studied. Then it was dinner time. Pacey sat down in his normal seat, away from his father, Dougie and his mother. He liked sitting at the end with Kerry's kids. After the first few minutes of general chatter, Pacey forced himself to speak up. He said, "Hey, we got PSAT results."

Pacey's father said, "How badly did you do?"

"You know, you should know I love you, Pacey, your results don't change my opinion of you, no matter how bad," his mother said.

Kerry took the paper from his hand. She said, "Oh my God, Pacey, you did so good!! Did you make National Merit?"

"Yeah, one of four at Capeside," Pacey said. Kerry got up and hugged him. 

"Mom, Dad, Pacey did amazing. 221 out of 240. He did better than 90% of the kids who took it this year," Kerry said. She even kissed his cheek before she sat down. She even told her kids to say 'Congratulations.'

Pacey's father stared suspiciously and said, "You can tell us the truth, Pacey, did you cheat?"

Pacey took a deep breath and stood up. He could literally feel something snap, hard and painful in his chest. 

"Fuck you," he said. He went to his room and grabbed all his books and some clothes and shoved them in a bag. He got on his bike and headed fast anywhere else. No one tried to stop him. 

He had reached that part of the creek. Jen or Dawson? Dawson was a sure thing, Grams much less so. But Grams had more empty rooms. She could lock him in so he didn't molest Jen. (He would never touch Jen that way, never ever.) He knocked on the door and Grams came. She looked at him with suspicion.

He started to say something and remembered what his dad had said and it all just came out blubbering. Grams hugged him and led him in. She said, "Jennifer told me about your accomplishment. She was very proud."

Pacey sniffled and tried to say something coherent. He rubbed at his eyes to try to act like some kind of man.

"I assume your parents were less than supportive," Grams said. There was a tinge in her voice that made him suspect Grams was not a fan of his family. Grams hugged him again. She patted his hair. He tried to remember when anyone besides Gretchen or Jen had done that to him. She said, "It would be improper to have you stay here while you're dating Jennifer." He started to pull away. She said, "To stay for long. Sometimes distance can help a family work things out. There's a room on the second floor, on the other side of Jennifer's. Why don't you lay down and get some sleep?"

Pacey nodded and did what she said. Grams woke him up at some point. She said, "I called your parents. I spoke to your mother." Grams inhaled sharply. "We can talk about that more. But you are certainly welcome here for the week. I just ask, please, don't have sex with my granddaughter in the house while you are here."

"Okay," Pacey said. "You don't have to do this."

"I don't believe that's true," Grams said. "I don't know if you share Jennifer's disdain for the Bible and God, but if you won't make fun of an old lady, I will tell you that when I prayed on this, I knew it was right to take you in."

"No making fun," Pacey said. 

Next time he woke up Jen was snuggled up next to him. He could feel her through the blanket. He said, "I promised Grams no sex in the house."

"That was very sweet of you," Jen said. "But I'm lying on top of the blanket and you're under it and we're just sleeping." She kissed his forehead. "I'm so so sorry your parents are assholes."

"I just couldn't take it," Pacey said. "I've been working so hard this year, and he just assumes, both of them. Even my sister was proud of me, but they couldn't muster up anything."

"Grams bought me the expensive coffee for my 210," Jen said. "She actually yelled at your mother."

"That's nice," Pacey said. 

"I haven't heard Grams that mad since this particular incident at the church sewing bee."

"She was mad for me?"

Jen sighed. "You sure you want the rest of this story?"

"Okay," Pacey said, heavily. 

"Your mother apparently said you running away was proof you cheated, and Grams raised her voice and talked about anyone who paid any attention to you this year would have seen you studying and she herself, Grams, had heard you helping other students and having engaging discussions about all sorts of books and while you, by which I mean Pacey, are completely wrong about Jane Eyre, it should be easy for anyone to see how smart you are. Then Grams ended with a 'if you had been better parents, and supported him academically, you wouldn't be surprised by these scores.' Only more polite and somehow meaner," Jen said. "I wish I knew how to do that."

Pacey nodded. He was never going back to that house, ever. It was a numb feeling; he'd left his family. He wasn't going back. He didn't want to see his parents in particular ever in his life and it wasn't teenage angst, it felt like self-defense as awful as that was.

He was probably over-reacting. They were neglectful, they had no faith in him, but they'd never hit him. Dougie had told him about a family in Capeside that looked respectable on this outside, but locked their youngest daughter in the basement and starved her. All the kids were in the Orphan House now. The Witters weren't that bad. 

He could hear his father tell him to stop being so fucking sensitive. He should toughen up. 

He shook it off. 

He biked to school the next day. He kept expecting his dad or Dougie to come by or the principal to announce some investigation into his scores. None of that happened. 

His group of friends were all very happy for him and his newly minted super smart status and carefully not mentioning that he had run away even though all of them clearly knew. Everyone in the school knew which Pacey should have found mystifying but then he figured his mother was probably bragging about it. Finally Pacey had sunk to exactly the level she had always expected him to, and she loved him but what could you expect from Pacey?

Dawson said, "Pacey, if you need another place to stay, the one thing the Leery parents agree on is you always have a room with us."

"Thanks," Pacey said. "They really don't agree on anything else?"

Dawson shrugged. He said, "They both think the moon landing is real." 

After school, Pacey biked to the counseling center. Brad was there and waved him over. "Your brother was in here," he said. 

"Are you fucking kidding me? He can't be bothered to actually talk to me, but he can come here and rat me out?" 

Brad just looked at him, calmly. "Come back here, you're not getting on the phones today."

Pacey slouched in the chair, so angry he could scream or cry. Brad said, "Tell me what happened."

Pacey told him, swearing a little, trying not to betray the lump in his throat. He mentioned he was probably being too sensitive and saw Brad frown, a rare occasion. 

Brad said, "What if someone had called in to you, that this had happened to them. What would you say?"

Pacey looked up at the ceiling. He should never have gotten this job. It wasn't like he was even good at it. He said, "I would tell them to take a few deep breaths, see if there was someone they could talk to. Then get the fuck out of the house, obviously."

Brad sighed. "Your parents often act in an abusive way towards you. You aren't wrong to want to break free. There aren't a lot of options for that at age 15."

"They're not abusing me," Pacey said. 

"Yeah, they are," Brad said. "So why don't you take this week to do some filing, get your hours in, and stay off the phones until you have a more stable living situation."

"Why don't I," Pacey grumbled. 

After his three hours were done, he biked to Jen's home. Grams had made an incredible dinner. Jen said, "I'm glad you're here, she doesn't cook like this for me."

"Shush, Jennifer, I do," Grams said. 

After dinner he went to his room to study. After he'd finished everything, he laid on his bed, in the dark, thinking about what Brad had said. He knew the definition of abusive was bigger than locking your children to starve in the basement or hitting them. He talked to kids about that on a lot of calls. He'd been through the training. Unconditional love, that was what parents were supposed to do. To date, in his life, he only had Gretchen and maybe Jen. 

!!

It was distinctly weird having Pacey at the breakfast table in the morning. Grams was so nice to him, too. Jen was definitely jealous. 

She was also so so sad at how eagerly Pacey lapped up Grams acting like he was a person and someone worth loving. She knew he was insecure, but it was so nakedly obvious how little love he had at home. She really hated how similar they were. 

She really wished they had made things better for each other. 

"I hate that Pacey's so miserable," Jen said. 

Dawson said, "I always thought he'd be happier away from his parents, maybe it just takes time to kick in. A few more days of not being belittled and underestimated and the joy might bloom up."

"I'm sure they're trying their best," Andie said. 

Jack said, "Sometimes that doesn't matter and you know it."

Jen decided to ignore the undercurrents there. She'd heard rumors that the McPhees had 'trouble' in the family, but for once, she stuck with Grams's philosophy and ignored all gossip about people she liked. She was judging them by the people they were to her. 

Pacey kissed her as he headed off, "There's lots of filing for the poor little runaway," he said. 

She was ambling home slowly, thinking about emailing Joey who would be no help. A police car pulled up beside her. She turned with a frown and there was Doug.

"Screw off," she said. 

"Jen, I am trying to help here," Doug said. He stopped the car in the front of her. 

"By reporting on Pacey to the center?"

"Oh, you mean when I went to the place they talk to troubled kids and told them they should talk to my brother who is troubled?"

"You probably think he cheated, too," Jen said. "He didn't. At all. It's awful you think that."

"I don't think he cheated," Doug said, sighing. "I'm just trying to help and give everyone a chance to calm down."

"Pacey doesn't need to calm down, he needs decent parents and a family who supports him," Jen said. 

"I know you think that," Doug said, gritting his teeth. "How about, instead of fighting over that, Pacey moves in with me? He can sleep on the couch."

"Why would he want to do that?"

"Because then he would be living with family --"

"So much less embarrassing for the sheriff," Jen said.

"Unlimited access to the bathroom where you two have been having sex for months," Doug said. 

"We clean up," Jen said. 

"Look, Jen, would you please tell him, and have him talk to me?"

"Fine," Jen said. 

Pacey was actually amenable to the whole thing. Jen worried he was going to relent on his parents. She had been wishing so hard he would get away from them. She resented the hell out of the way that he kept judging her for things he thought had happened to her. Pacey, though, he would never admit his parents were abusive, he could barely call them shitty. He thought he saw so clearly about her, but he had blinders on about his own family. 

She went with Doug when the Witter house was empty to get all of Pacey's things. "I'll take under the bed," Doug said. "He might have some boys only material down there."

"You mean all the Playboys?" Jen smiled as she looked through his desk. "I only look at them for the articles."

Stuffed towards the back of the bottom drawer was the treasure trove she was thought Pacey would die if she saw. Pictures of Pacey and Dawson at 8, 10, even 6. Notes he'd kept, random things like Mitch writing "welcome pacey" on a napkin. There was even two notes from Joey's mom. He'd kept movie tickets from all of their dates, Jen noticed. 5 or 6 dumb notes she'd slipped in his locker to say she'd see him later. 

She thought how everything like this that she had was from before she was 12 or after she'd come to Capeside. 

!!

"You know, Andie was talking about sex," Dawson said. 

Pacey looked up from the TV in Dawson's room. They were watching a movie for class. Pacey had actually read the book as well, but Dawson kept going on what a masterpiece the movie was. It was a nice distraction from all of Pacey's drama. Funny how everything happened and you left the family home for the brother's couch, you still got up in the morning, took a crap, and went to school. 

Pacey said, "Having sex with you?"

"Yeah," Dawson said. "It's astonishing. We've really only been dating three weeks, I agree the connection is intense but does sex seem sudden? You and Jen waited for, what, 2 months?"

"One of us wasn't a virgin," Pacey said. "Don't compare my relationship to yours, we're pretty different people."

"Ever since I met her mother, I do feel like I love her, like she could be the one. She's so strong and she deserves to be with someone who recognizes how wonderful she is. Aren't you the one who's always telling me to stop waiting for the picture perfect romantic moments?"

Pacey said, "Joey is, but I can understand why you don't want her opinion here. I guess I would make sure, if I were you, that this is something Andie really wants not something she feels she has to do to measure up to other people or to try to be normal even though her mother is ill."

"She's not sick," Dawson said. "That sounded like something they teach you to recite at the counseling center."

"Mental illness is still illness," Pacey said. "There's a lot of brain scans and other studies that indicate physical signs of depression and other disorders. That's why they can keep making medication and get better."

"More wisdom from the counseling center?"

"Yup, day 1 of training. A lot of kids call in because they're embarrassed or they think taking their medication is some kind of compromise of will. They want to be stronger. They think they're weak and they'll never write a decent novel. Like they were going to before. And it's like, if you were diabetic, would you be calling me to say you can live without insulin?" Pacey was barely paying attention to the so called cinematic masterpiece. 

"It's a lot to process," Dawson said. 

"Andie doesn't get to choose to process it, you know," Pacey said. 

"She called into the hotline, didn't she? That's why she grilled me if you had said anything about her," Dawson said.

"All I will say is if she did, I am not going to repeat any of it ever," Pacey said.

Dawson looked over at him and then back at the TV. "Sometimes I miss Pacey the screw up," Dawson said. 

"Thanks a lot," Pacey said. He stared at the screen wondering what the woman had been saying before.

"But I like Pacey who knows his own worth a lot better, I swear," Dawson said. "I miss when we all had our roles hammered in place, which is stupid, because of course we were all going to grow up and you're growing up good, better than I am."

"Okay, genuine thanks," Pacey said. "Don't underestimate the guy Dawson Leery is growing up to be, though."

He biked to his new home at Doug's. He was almost asleep on the couch when Doug got in. He pretended to be asleep when he heard Doug talking to someone. He wanted to cover his ears when he realized it was his father. 

"Dad, I don't need the money," Doug said. 

"It's really Pacey's," the Sheriff said. "I made him pay me all those fees for the PSAT. He'll eat you out of house and home soon enough."

"You could wake him up and tell him yourself," Doug said.

"Your mother and I have talked about this. We're not in the wrong here, Doug." Pacey was almost sure he heard something like doubt in his father's voice. Fucker. Pacey's father would pick virtually anyone over Pacey.

"Yeah, it's much more important being right than taking care of your kid," Doug muttered as their father had left. 

Pacey waited until Doug was in the bathroom to wipe at his face.

In the morning, he sat next to Jack on the school steps, waiting for everybody else. Pacey said, "How come you didn't come in with Andie?"

"She wanted five more minutes, so I said screw it and grabbed my bike," Jack said. "How's the counseling center?"

"I'm back on the phones so that's nice. I actually like the part where I get to pretend to be wise and give condescending advice," Pacey said.

"I bet it's not condescending," Jack said. "Or wise."

"Ha ha ha. You still working at the Icehouse?"

"It's a job," Jack said. "Not one I'm good at but I'm getting there."

Jen and Dawson came up, followed up by Andie who was squealing to get to Dawson. Jen sat down on Pacey's lap and kissed him scandalously. "Hey," Jack said. "I'm the only one here with no one to cuddle, so can you at least spare me the PDA?"

"PDA is my favorite kind of DA," Jen said, wiggling on Pacey's lap. Pacey thought about his mother and then stood up. 

Pacey liked Jack, he seemed like a good guy. It was nice to have a guy friend who managed to speak in fewer SAT words than Dawson. Jack didn't have that golden boy glow, either. Pacey liked Dawson's glow, it was nice to have a little reflected light. He just liked someone he could shoot the shit with. 

Andie was sweet, unbearably perky, way too driven about school and prone to being anxious about everything. He liked her, too. He wondered sometimes, idly, if he hadn't had Jen and Dawson hadn't been single, if he and Andie could have had a thing. Maybe. But that was probably true of everyone. 

Not Abby Morgan, he thought. Nothing would ever happen there. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Jen wrote Joey long emails about school and Pacey and much less about Dawson. It was the weirdest thing have a good girl friend and then not having her. She'd heard all about Ethan the rat, but it was different when you could actually talk. They could compare outfits and Jen would convince Joey to try just a touch of eyeshadow and watch everyone else act like they just realized she was practically a supermodel. 

Andie tried and Jen liked her, but Andie was a lot to take. She had opinions about a million things, and Jen was used to that in her boyfriend but add in her friend and she would just get tired. She never said so to Andie because she could tell in a second Andie was sensitive. She thought it a lot. 

Most of her letters to Joey were about school and how irritating her classes and how bitchy the teachers were. Joey made fun of her for it and Jen didn't mind. Jen begged her to take a million pictures. "And make sure you're in some of them" she wrote.

Today she was sitting in the library finishing up her email to Joey when Andie sat down next to her. "You know, I can't wait to meet Joey," Andie said. 

"She's awfully swell," Jen said.

"I guess you are two are really close," Andie said.

"Are you going to ask me about Joey and Dawson because that's a clear violation of girl power," Jen said.

"No, not at all, I would never. I fully support girl power and women supporting each other," Andie said. She looked up at Jen. "I just thought it would be nice if we were close like that. Because I need girl power sometimes, too."

"I like you," Jen said. She sighed. She knew what Andie wanted to talk about it, she knew it, and she didn't want to give in, she felt like it would honestly hurt to give in. She'd never had anyone and she shouldn't shut down the real things that came her way. Only connect, she thought and wondered why she'd stupidly read Howard's End. Now that she had turned a simple talk into a some kind of Shakespeare monologue in her head, she said, "Tell me about you and Dawson."

"Oh," Andie said. She leaned in and whispered. "We had sex. Both of us, for the first time."

"With each other," Jen said.

Andie giggled. "Yes. I did a lot of research, on the internet and in the community college library, and I was sure we were ready."

"Of course you did research," Jen said. She desperately wanted to get out, tell Joey about this conversation and she never could. "How was it?"

"It was, hmm, hard to judge, because of course I've never done it before but we've both explored each other's bodies, parts of it were very awkward. I should probably practice putting on a condom," Andie said.

"Some people like bananas for that," Jen said. She wanted out, out, out. Her skin itched. She said, "What was the best part?"

Andie smiled. "After, when he kissed me and said the sweetest things. You know Dawson, he's very eloquent."

"That's great, Andie," Jen said, reaching out for a very awkward hug. "That's so great."

!!

The big news was that Mitch Leery was definitively moved out of the house. He'd had a one night stand with Ms. Jacobs and been caught, though by whom was a little fuzzy. 

Dawson shoved his books forcefully in his locker. "It was a former student of hers. Before she moved to Capeside this year, in her last job, she was Mary Kay Letourneau to some 16 year old. The guy came to her house, they had to call the police because he was nuts, Dougie realized exactly why my dad was there. He swears it was only once."

"So I guess no Ms. Jacobs today," Andie said. She patted Dawson's arm. 

"Thank God," Dawson said. "I don't think I could stand to see her."

Pacey said, "So what's happening at home?"

"Dad moved out, Mom has the house. There was a lot of yelling so I just went to Andie's."

"When my crazy mom is a relief," Andie said. "It was a dire situation."

"I don't know why my dad is the one moving out, Mom had a whole relationship, Dad slept with her one time," Dawson said. 

Pacey just patted Dawson's shoulder. He said, "So I guess it's definitely divorce then."

"Yeah, that was crystal clear," Dawson said. 

"I'm sorry, man," Pacey said. 

Andie leaned her head on Dawson's back and it seemed really comforting to him. 

Friday, Pacey watched Jen watch TV while he sat on his bed slash couch. "You're cranky," he said, because he was stupid. 

Jen glared at him. "Sorry I'm not entertaining you," she said. 

"You've been grumpy all week. Joey comes back tomorrow," Pacey said. "Those things are not related. But you have been grumpy all week. Are you going to talk to me about it?"

"You're not volunteering right now," Jen said, now glaring at the TV.

"Hey, let me guess, Andie cornered you and told you all about her first time with Dawson, which I've heard all about, by the way from the male side. And it set you off in ways you prefer not to think about because you always prefer not to think about that," Pacey said. He was just so tired of dancing around Jen's issues. 

"Shut up, Pacey," Jen said. 

"Andie and Dawson had a pleasantly awkward first time and your first time was the exact opposite of that," Pacey said. 

"Do you enjoy looking down at me from your high perch on your white horse, coming to my rescue because I'm so pathetic," Jen said, tears in her eyes.

"I never think you're pathetic," Pacey said. "Never. It's the last word I would ever apply to you, you understand? I do think you were raped."

"Fuck you," Jen said. "I was not. Didn't your counseling center teach you anything? What about my own whatever, my own ability to decide who I am and who I am not?"

"Your agency," Pacey said. "That's the counseling center speak for it. You think I'm depriving you of your agency by giving a name to your experience you don't like, but I'm sorry, I can't buy your view that you wanted to have someone get you drunk when you were 12 and reeling from what happened with your father and also you were 12 and someone got you drunk?"

Jen looked down at her fingers. "I knew girls who did the same thing."

"That makes it okay," Pacey said.

"It wasn't like that," Jen said.

"If it wasn't like that, why do you react like this?" He got up and got down on his knees in front of her chair. "Jen?"

"Shut up," she mumbled. He rested his hands on her knees. 

"I don't want to talk about this," Jen said, getting up and walking past to the bathroom. 

Pacey went back to his couch and opened his book. He was not actually reading, not in the slightest.

Doug came home two minutes later, just in time for Jen to come out of the bathroom, wiping her face and grabbing her books. Doug said, "Jen."

Pacey said, "I'll walk her out, Doug, holster your gun."

Jen let Pacey walk her outside. She said, "I'm fine, you know."

Pacey smiled at her. "Of course, you are. You think I think you're pathetic because of what happened to you, I freaking love you because these things happened to you and you're up and walking and making friends and being a good friend to Joey and Andie.."

She looked up. "You love me. Really? Not just for my tits?"

"You are so much more than your incredibly perfect breasts, Jen," Pacey said. 

"Actually, I hate you," Jen said. "Pick me up tomorrow to go to the airport?"

"Bessie is picking up all of us," Pacey said. 

!!

Joey got off the plane and after customs, saw Bessie with Alexander and Pacey and Jen holding up a sign that said "welcome home joey!!" Joey almost burst into tears again. She told herself it was the jet lag. But she ran to them anyway. 

There was so much hugging and everyone making Pacey carry Joey's bags. Joey had Alexander in her arms, his beautiful baby smell the sweetest thing Joey could think of. She finally said, "No Dawson?"

"We all thought that made more sense being a private reunion," Pacey said. 

"Oh, okay," Joey said. In the drive home from Logan, Joey said, "Okay, let's have the gossip."

"Dawson's parents are getting a full on divorce. Mitch is out of the house in his own apartment, because, apparently, Mitch had his own little affair," Bessie said.

"It was just the one time," Pacey said. "According to Dawson. This is very important to Dawson because while his mother was unfaithful for a long period of time, she had a RELATIONSHIP, Mitch succumbed to the wiles of our erstwhile English teacher."

"He means Miss Jacobs," Jen said. "Not our other English teachers which would be a much more interesting story."

"Poor Dawson," Joey said. "He really thinks his mom acted worse than his dad?"

"I'm sad to say his first impulses are often pretty sexist," Jen said. 

Joey said, "And Pacey is a runaway sleeping on his brother's couch?"

"Pacey is," Pacey said. "I'm never going back to that house of horrors, ever."

Joey thought for a minute about how much she'd give to see her mother, but she'd emailed that to Jen and Jen had said it didn't really apply to Pacey's mom who was 900 times worse than Joey's mom. Joey nodded. 

Jen said, "We want to hear about Paris. How great is that going to look on your college applications?"

Pacey laughed at her. "You'll have to excuse Jen, we've been hanging around with a bad influence."

"Doesn't sound so bad," Joey said.

"They mean Dawson's new girlfriend," Bessie said. "Andie. I met her in passing, she's very determined and focused and perky."

"So nothing like me," Joey said. 

"A lot like you," Pacey said. "But she's blonde."

"And she has a cute brother, by the way," Jen said. 

Then they left Joey to unpack. She set aside all the gifts she'd bought, after giving Bessie, Bodie and Alexander theirs. She hefted Dawson's in her hands and decided to go visit him. If he was with Andie then that was cool, too, she thought. She'd dumped him, and it sounded like Andie was a pretty great person. 

"That you are totally allowed to hate," Jen had said, when they were alone in Joey's bedroom. "I can't join in, because you know, she's dating my boyfriend's best friend. And I like her, sort of. But I like you better."

Joey had laughed. "This is girl friendship, huh?"

"I'm pretty sure," Jen had said. "I'm so glad you're home."

Joey arrived at Dawson's and knocked on the door. She waited and heard people coming down from Dawson's room, she assumed. Then Dawson opened the door. He said, "Joey!" and hugged her tight. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too," she said. "I brought you your Paris gift." 

"Postcards from the Louvre," Dawson said, a little befuddled. 

"Bande a part," she said, smiling nervously. "The movie, you made me watch it. I arranged the postcards in the order of the galleries they ran through in the film. I know it's a film geek thing, but you're a film geek. Right, you are still?"

"Of course, I get it," he said. He smiled, too. "I get it now. It's great."

"I'm going to head out now," someone said. Must be Andie, she thought. 

"Uh, Joey, this is Andie, Andie, Joey," Dawson said. He waved his hands between them. 

"It's nice to meet you," Joey said.

"Congratulations," Andie said. "On being a National Merit Scholar. We had the same score."

"Oh, yeah, thanks," Joey said. "Congratulations to you, too." 

Andie kissed the air near Dawson's cheek like she couldn't decide between a real kiss or just saying goodbye. It made Joey like the girl in spite of herself. "See you at study group," Joey said. 

"Of course," Andie said. 

She and Dawson made awkward conversation until finally, Joey said, "Hey, so you had sex."

Dawson burst out laughing. "Yeah, I did. I did. It was interesting. It has been interesting."

"If interesting is your word to describe it, I think you're not doing it right. I am only guessing as someone who hasn't gone that far, but that's my guess."

"I don't know the right words for it, I mean. It's not as weighty as you might think, it's not life changing except it sort of is life changing," Dawson said. "I thought this would be awkward to discuss but it's strangely not, do you feel that way, too?"

"I actually do," Joey said. "I think this is us, the us that should be, where we can just talk about everything and we love each other, but we're not in love," Joey said. 

"So I've decided to use the money from winning the Boston Film Festival to shoot a new film," Dawson said.

"Of course," Joey said. "About?"

"I had a lot of thoughts, but then I thought, divorce. The bewildering experience of being a teen and having parents who are all too human, and they always have been all too human but you never start noticing until everything is falling apart," Dawson said. 

"So, autobiographical?"

"A little bit. I had this idea of never showing the parents, just seeing the characters, the teens, at all hours of the day and you wonder where are their parents? Why is no one checking up on them?"

Joey smiled. "Sounds fascinating."

"Actually, Andie's been really helpful. She keeps having me read these books on narrative structure and classic scripts," Dawson said. "I think it's really helping. Andie McPhee believes everything can be improved by good research and how to guides."

"When do you start shooting?"

"Probably next weekend," Dawson said. "Ready to produce again?"

"I don't think so," Joey said. "It's not personal, I swear, Dawson. I just, I had Bessie sign me up for an art course and I have some plans and I need to catch up on school, I don't think I'll have time. Plus, we've expanded our tiny social circle, so you have more resources than me and Pacey now."

"Which is good because neither you or Pacey are available to me this time around," Dawson said, smiling. 

"I can help when you're filming, but all the other stuff," Joey said.

"Now you have to tell me about Paris," Dawson said. 

!!

Jen knew intellectually and viscerally that Joey was just one more person at study group, but it suddenly felt too big at six people. She had the weirdest reactions to things sometimes. She almost wanted to tell Pacey but she wasn't interested in his simplistic ways of looking at her life. 

Joey seemed so confident now, even if she was still completely unaware of how gorgeous she was. Joey was being nice to Andie and she seemed to be maybe flirting with Jack. Jen looked over at Pacey and he smiled at her and she was in love all over again. Stupid boys. Joey smirked at her like she was reading Jen's mind.

Jen ended up being the producer for Dawson's new film. She enjoyed it and she was good at it which was a bonus. She sat with Dawson while they cast parts and they figured out logistics for the scenes. She arranged things and ordered people around while reigning in Dawson's more grandiose ideas. . 

She went over to Dougie's and flopped on the couch next to Pacey. He pulled her into him. "How is my film producer?" His voice always sounded so sexy when they were this close. 

"Tired," Jen said. "I understand why people use cocaine so much in Hollywood."

"We can break into the evidence locker at the police station, Dougie just seized half a kilo from some dumbass Boston banker," Pacey said. He unzipped her pants and slipped his hand into her underwear. She lifted her hips to bring him even closer. "Or we can have sex and tire you even more so you can barely get home and you just collapse somewhere on the road."

"Then I'll get kidnapped by a dumbass Boston banker who holds me hostage so Dougie will give him back his coke, there will be a fiery crash and everyone dies. With my last breath I reach my hand out to you and say 'sex is bad, Pace.'"

"We should learn that lesson, sweetie," Pacey said. 

"Sex is so bad," Jen said. "When is Doug home?"

"5 am," Pacey said, smiling. 

Jen pushed her pants and underwear down, bringing up her knees so Pacey didn't have to stop touching her, the way he touched her drove her crazy. 

Pacey pulled her bare ass almost all the way off the couch and spread her legs. Between his lovely lovely hands and his tongue and lips, she came with a very loud moan.

"Please don't pull out my hair, Jen," Pacey said. He was looking up at her from between her legs, so she patted the top of his head. 

"Thank you for making me come," Jen said. "Can you just walk me home now? I want to avoid that banker, you know?"

"You're just being cruel," Pacey said. 

"Kidding, take off your pants, we can fuck right here in the living room." 

He drove her home in Doug's personal car. "He even leaves his spare keys out for me," Pacey said. "I thought I was some slick undercover operative, scamming my way through the family, but apparently, I'm not very stealthy."

"I bet you were pretty stealthy," Jen said. "Although, honestly, how stealthy do you to have to be put one over on your mother? She's so wrapped up in her own little martyrdom."

"In her defense, the Witters are horrible people," Pacey said, smiling again. He smiled a lot now that he lived with Doug. 

She should tell him, she thought. She should tell him a lot of things, this was the best relationship she'd ever been in, with the best person she knew. She wanted to be smart and make this thing last but she knew she would ruin it. 

She went shopping the next day with Joey. "How was art class?"

"Amazing," Joey said. "I feel like I'm really getting this, this language of art. I feel like I'm almost translating the beauty I feel in some way."

"That sounds fantastic," Jen said. "I'm not sure I understand, but that sounds fantastic. I like your whole glow since you came home."

"I love being home," Joey said. "So Jack seems nice, right?"

"He does," Jen said, laughing. "He seems really nice and un-rat like."

"You've known him two months, what's the deal?"

"The deal," Jen said. "Dawson met Andie, Andie has a brother, he seems nice. He hasn't dated anyone yet."

"Because he has a girlfriend back in Providence?"

"No, because he's shy, I think," Jen said. "Also, he doesn't have the easiest home life. Which I think is as far as I should go."

"You're a good person," Joey said. "Why don't you think you're a good person?"

"If I didn't have flaws, I'd be too perfect for this world," Jen said, laughing, They went outside and sat on a bench. "I keep thinking about breaking up with Pacey."

"Why? You love him," Joey said. 

"I do, I do, I just, there's this thing he does, the way he thinks about me, I can't stand it."

Joey said, "I think he thinks you're wonderful and you hung the moon."

"He thinks I'm some wounded, tortured girl," Jen said. "He took something I said the wrong way. Now he's convinced I was, I was hurt. I was fine."

Joey didn't say anything, she just took Jen's hand and squeezed. Jen sniffled. 

Joey said, "Clearly you don't think this is something you can talk to Pacey about, so I think maybe you just lump it. He's got this one flaw, this one thing that hurts you. But he's great in every other way, right?"

"He can be a little sexist," Jen said. "I should talk to him, though."

"Tell him you're gonna break up with him over it, I bet he changes his mind real soon. Also, don't break up with Pacey, when he's with you, he's really tolerable."

"He was always tolerable," Jen said. 

She didn't want to talk to Pacey, though. He would just say she was in denial. She should just lump it.

Three days later, Joey was calling her after her first date with Jack. They went to an art exhibit and he bought her coffee afterwards. "He told me about his mom," Joey said. "He said it was very nice of you to not give me any details, but given his mom's freakouts at the local grocery store, apparently everyone knows."

"But I wanted him to get to tell you," Jen said. 

"You're a very good person, I keep telling you," Joey said. 

They started filming. Everyone was helping out and pulling together. Abby Morgan was a hose beast of a human being but she was surprisingly charismatic on film. It was a good film, Jen thought. She said so to Pacey. "I agree," he said. "I wish my parents would get divorced."

"Me, too," Jen said. "Mine, not yours. But yours, too."

"It's scary because no one enters into marriage thinking, well, this won't last. Nobody has kids thinking, I'm going to be very bad at this. I'm going to abandon her. Worse," Pacey said. 

Jen turned on her side on the couch and snuggled into him. "Did you have a bad call at the center today?"

"The kind you immediately pass off to the actual counselors, yes," Pacey said. "I wanted to call Doug and get him to trace that one, you know?"

"That sounds seriously awful," Jen said. 

"It was," Pacey said. "I love you, by the way. Please don't break up with me."

"Why do you think I'm gonna break up with you?" She snuggled closer, grabbed his butt. 

"You have this look in your eye sometimes," he said. "I know I work your very last nerve any time I possibly imply or might have implied that maybe some of your sexual encounters were less than consensual."

"You do," she said. "But I don't want to break up with you, I just --"

"Please don't," he said. He sounded sad. 

"Don't worry," she said. "I'm not going to." 

!!

Pacey made his own breakfast Sunday morning as always, since Doug insisted on going to brunch with the family that didn't give a damn about Pacey. Mostly, Pacey missed Kerry's kids. They were pretty fun. Kerry was a pretty good mom, despite the shitty examples she'd had. He heard a knock at the door and thought for one minute it might be maybe his dad, but instead he got Joey. 

She came in and sat down at the table. "I can't believe you're living with Doug," she said. 

"I sleep on his couch," Pacey said. "He mainly does it so I'm not officially a runaway because that would look bad for the Witter family."

"My fellow National Merit Scholar," Joey said.

"Semifinalist, all we are is semifinalists," Pacey said. "You, I am sure, will be going on to bigger and better things."

"Hey, don't be down-on-Pacey Pacey," Joey said. 

"Okay," Pacey said, snapping fingers. "All better."

"I didn't come here for your biting wit," Joey said. "So, I was thinking, it's nice we're friends. Because sometimes there are things I can't exactly feel comfortable saying to Dawson and I just have this vibe about Jen so I thought, hey, Pacey."

"You had sex with Jack," Pacey said. 

"Yeah," Joey said, smiling. "He was posing nude for me because he ruined my sketch for art class, and one thing led to another and it felt really right."

"Did you use a condom?"

"Yes, he did," Joey said. She looked up and down and did some weird lip biting thing. She said, "It was awkward. Is it usually awkward?"

"I have no idea," Pacey said. "I've only had sex with one person ever and awkward stuff is mostly when we're adjusting for the height difference."

Joey smiled, like he'd wanted. He said, "What do you mean by awkward?"

"He, um, he got hard, then he was less, then he was hard again, and it was fine. That's normal, right?"

Pacey said, "I have no idea how to answer that. Men parts are weird. They behave oddly. Especially in your teen years, apparently."

"It's a part of your body, it's not like some separate thing that has its own mind," Joey said. "Do you think he doesn't really want me?"

"He absolutely wants you," Pacey said. "Many things can make a man not stand up as much as he wants to. He's tired, he's nervous, he wants you too much. He suddenly thought about his mother. He suddenly thought about his father. He started worrying he would finish too soon. He started to worry he would never finish. He thought he looked fat in the sketch." Pacey finished his orange juice. "Why do you have a bad vibe about telling Jen?"

"I have figured out the secret code of your relationship issue," Joey said. "And Jen, I love her but sometimes you can just tell, she has these freak outs. Little quiet freak outs."

"She does," Pacey said. "She does, indeed. Do you feel better about you and Jack and any awkwardness?"

"I didn't feel bad. It was great," Joey said. "It was. I'm probably just over-analyzing. Next time will be better."

"You never over-analyze," Pacey said.

"Thanks," Joey said. "I really like him."

"He's very likable," Pacey said. "He's a good egg."

"You seem very morose," Joey said. 

"Well, it's Sunday morning, I'm eating by myself because my family is awful, this week, for the second time I've been working at the center, some poor girl called in because her actual father was doing unspeakable things, and when I say second time, I mean two different girls. So maybe my family isn't that awful," Pacey said. "The grad student who functions as my pseudo shrink says we don't do emotional pain dick sizing."

"Please tell me that's your choice of words, not his," Joey said.

"His actually," Pacey said. "I just like the sound of it. Of course, he also thinks my family is abusive and I just think they're sucky so we have our differences."

"Your family isn't abusive," Joey said. She looked down at table. 

Pacey said, "Don't try the if only I could see my mother one last time on me, Potter. Your mother was wonderful. She was loving and talented and an all around joy. None of those words apply to mine except all around and you have to follow it with narcissist."

Joey nodded. "Okay." She randomly kissed his cheek on the way out. 

!!

Jen agreed to the exciting triple date reluctantly. She foresaw Dawson and Joey engaging in some passive aggressive look at how we're such good friends and also having sex both of us action. Pacey said not to worry. He said that a lot now that he lived with Dougie. She felt like he'd gotten so much less down on himself now that he'd stopped talking to his parents completely. 

Jen was shopping at the only grocery store in town when Mrs. Witter came up to her out of nowhere. She said, "You, you're Pacey's little friend."

"I'm his girlfriend," Jen said. "I have been for over 6 months."

"I know he's told you his side of all of this, but you have to understand, as much as I love Pacey, even as a child, he was always a liar. Always making up stories. Anything he's said about me or his father is probably grossly exaggerated to make Pacey look good," Mrs. Witter said.

Jen prayed to the God she didn't believe in that she wouldn't beat Pacey's mother with the french bread in her cart. 

Instead she said, "He's never told me anything but the truth. And you're just now proving every shitty thing he says about you is softened because he stupidly believes in your heart you give a damn about him. And we both know you don't." 

Jen abandoned her cart and stomped off. She ran into Joey and Andie, and Andie, naturally, said, "Why are you so upset? Is something wrong?"

"Mrs. Witter tried to talk to me," Jen said. 

"Ew," Joey said. "I've known Pacey since he was 5 and she never recognizes me as one of his friends. Which is really very nice."

"She sounds actively malicious," Andie said, looking over her shoulder. 

"Because she is," Jen said. "The way she talks about Pacey, it's awful. Also it's awful that Grams and I are going to starve because I stomped out with buying our groceries."

"I bet you don't," Joey said.

The dreaded triple date was dinner and a movie. They all went to the Icehouse and Bodie cooked a special meal that was better than they deserved. "Bodie is seriously amazing," Pacey said. "Sometimes I try to cook for me and Dougie, it does not end up like that."

"There's these things called recipes," Jen said. 

"I followed the recipe," Pacey said.

"But you decided to add something," Jack said. "Right?"

"I thought maybe it would need some salt," Pacey said. "Lesson learned. Now Doug won't let me in the kitchen."

"It's not so bad living with your brother," Andie said. 

There was a conversational lull, of course. "It's exactly like study group," Pacey said. "Except with something to talk about. You guys aren't this shy and unforthcoming on your dates, right?"

"Well, we are," Jen said. "Mostly we just have sex in Doug's bathroom."

"True," Pacey said, putting his arm around her. "We have nothing in common so why not just get laid a lot, I say."

Dawson laughed. He said, "So I finished the editing on my film. I think."

"No, you did. No more tinkering," Andie said. "There is such a thing as overdirected. I was just reading Pauline Kael's book on film criticism, and she makes that point a few times. I think. The point is, you, Dawson, are just gonna cut the wrong things or add back in a scene you don't need if you keep editing."

"If the last version you showed me is your final cut, I agree with Andie," Jen said. 

"If you can't trust those two, you can't trust anyone," Jack said. Then he glanced at Joey and kept his eyes on the table.

Joey said, "Can I see it?" She sounded slightly blase, but only slightly.

"Of course, Joey, you're always my final arbiter," Dawson said. 

Jen rolled her eyes in her head, but Andie looked a little hurt. This triple date was guaranteed to be a nightmare, she'd told Pacey.

Jack said, "Joey can show you her most recent art project. She's using pastel chalk for the first time but you can't tell at all, it looks really accomplished."

"I'd love to see it," Dawson said.

"We all would," Pacey said. "Are you having like, a final art recital when the class is over?"

"It's not a recital," Joey said. "But yeah, in April, the teacher chooses the piece she thinks is our best, and we choose what we think is our best, or second best, and it all goes on display. None of us are very good, though."

"You're very good," Jack said.

"I've only seen your doodles in class, but I agree," Andie said, smiling.

Then they were all miraculously talking. Jen felt weirdly smug about how long she and Pacey had been together, like their over half a year was such an accomplishment.


	3. Chapter 3

Joey hated their English teacher. She'd caught up quickly enough thanks to study group, but Mr. Petersen had been a dick about all of it. Like somehow going to Paris to study abroad made Joey too snooty for him. Joey didn't consider herself any part of snooty. 

They were supposed to write a poem about anything. Pacey said he'd gotten dinged by Mr. Petersen for bad handwriting once, so now he typed out all his assignments. Everyone turned theirs in, but Mr. Petersen wasn't going to let a class go by without tormenting someone. Pacey had muttered something under his breath and Jack had quietly laughed, so Jack was today's target. 

Mr. Petersen demanded Jack read his poem aloud. Jack very clearly did not want to. Joey wondered if it was about his brother or his mother. She knew his mother had been driving when his older brother had died and his mother had had a lot of problems ever since. Their father was also some kind of asshole who left Andie and Jack to take care of the woman. 

Jack started to read and Joey realized the poem was about something serious and important. She felt a sad snap of realization as a lot things started to make sense. She started forward to Jack because he was nearly crying when Pacey got up and took the poem from Jack. 

He started reading it. Mr. Petersen told him to stop, Jack was the one who had to read it. But Jack had already run out of the class. Joey and Pacey were standing, about to go after Jack when Mr. Petersen told them to stand down. 

"Fuck you," Pacey said. Joey slipped past him and left the class. 

She couldn't find Jack. She did see Pacey stalking through the hallway.

"Did you find him?"

"No," Joey said. "Why are you out of class?"

"Petersen wrote me up for swearing at him. Off to the principal."

"Petersen was being an ass," Joey said.

"He says he's going to fail me," Pacey said, briefly looking worried. 

"He can't do that," Joey said. "Your grades have been great on everything in his class."

"Whatever," Pacey said and marched on his way. He stopped. "I hope Jack's okay," he said to her. 

!!

Pacey found himself sitting in the principal's office. There was the principal, Mr. Petersen, Pacey's guidance counselor. The main plus was that no one had tried to call Pacey's parents. 

Pacey said, "I apologize for using vulgar words, I do not apologize for standing up to this man."

The principal frowned. He said, "Mr. Witter, we are going to transfer you and Mr. McPhee out of that English class and into the one taught by Ms. Jacobs's replacement. You have detention for the next two weeks."

"Are you joking?" Mr. Petersen looked upset, like he'd wanted a pound of flesh. 

The principal grimaced and said, "You made a student cry, you're not blameless here. Plus, Mr. Witter is one of our four National Merit Scholars, we've never had that many, ever. He has a troubled home life."

Pacey said, "Is that what we're calling it?"

The guidance counselor said, "Yes, Pacey, that's what we're calling it. Your record this year has been excellent except for this one incident even with your conflicts at home."

"Oh, boo hoo," Mr. Petersen said. 

"Everyone out," the principal said. "Witter, go to Mr. Collins's class tomorrow. And pass that along to McPhee."

"I can't believe they let me off," Pacey said, leaning against his locker. 

Dawson said, "It's nice to see the hand of privilege isn't just wielded for athletes and the rich, but also the brainiacs."

"Yes, you are one of the brainiacs," Jen said, holding him around the waist. "Don't worry, Collins is an idiot."

"At least I'm not being rewarded with a decent English teacher? I like the way you think, Lindley."

Dawson said, "So Jack, huh?"

"Dawson, let's just all wait until Jack has a chance to make whatever he wants clear," Jen said. 

Pacey kissed the top of her blonde head. He still genuinely couldn't believe people would stand up for him.

At least until he got home when Doug was waiting, ready to yell at him. It was pretty similar to Dad's usual except Doug spent a lot more time on how Pacey had shown how much potential he had, and couldn't afford to waste it. 

Then Doug sighed and sat down next to Pacey on the couch. "Don't take this the wrong way, but Mom wants to legally transfer custody of you to me."

"Fuck," Pacey said. "What's the right way to take that?"

"It just means I get notified when you have an emergency, I can claim you on my taxes as a dependent which I will need to, that's all, Pacey." Doug frowned. 

"Then why not just do it?"

Doug stood up. "You know it's just her way to make you feel bad for abandoning her."

"I didn't abandon her, she abandoned me first. Also, where the fuck is Dad in all this?"

Doug said, "I don't know. We don't talk about it."

"He told me freshman year any time I wanted to emancipate myself, I could," Pacey said. 

"He says lots of things in a fight," Doug said. "Look, you don't have to do anything. I'll let you know what happens."

"I don't even have a bedroom to stomp off to," Pacey said, clutching his pillow to his chest. He got up. "I'm gonna head over to Jen's. I'll be back."

He fell asleep on top of Jen's bed, her underneath the covers. But she was holding him, and not even commenting on how much snot he was getting all over her while he cried.

!!

Joey couldn't find Jack. She biked to his house and waited on the steps. He came up and sat down next to her. "I'm fine, Joey," he said. 

"No, you're not. Jack, you don't have to be strong for me or quiet for me, let me be the person you can be loud --"

"And proud?" Jack stood up. "You think I'm gay?"

Joey looked up at him. He swore at her and went into the house. 

She waited outside, just in case. Andie came home and stared at her. "Is Jack not here?"

"He is, he just doesn't want to talk to me," Joey said. "Are you okay, Andie?"

"Why wouldn't I be? Why wouldn't I?" Andie looked to the side. "I'm fine, Jack isn't gay. It's good. We should be fine."

"It's okay if you aren't," Joey said. 

She was talking to a void. She went home. 

In the morning, she went to school without seeing any of her friends. So she was standing there by herself looking at all the copies of Jack's poem taped to the wall and various lockers. She went to Jack's locker but someone had already scratched FAG onto it. She went to the principal's office and practically dragged one of the counselors to see it. "Why are you letting this happen? Who runs this school? Should someone be putting up some student's work to embarrass them? Aren't you supposed to help us?"

She saw Jack come up and see his locker. Her heart broke at his face. "Jack," she said. 

"We'll get this taken care of," the counselor said, rushing off. 

"I bet she won't," Jack said. 

"You should sue," Joey said. 

"My dad showed up this morning. Andie is overjoyed. He's still ignoring me, now because he's ashamed of me," Jack said.

"Did he just come down for this?"

"Of course," Jack said, opening his locker. Notes fell out. Jack just stared at them on the floor. "They switched my English class at least. Just me and Pacey, you get to stay in the class from hell so good luck with that."

"Pacey didn't get suspended or expelled?"

"No, he didn't, I have no idea why not," Jack said. 

Pacey was there, looking through the notes on the ground. He balled up some of them and the others he set aside. "Actually, it turns out if you're a so-called troubled runaway and one of four National Merit Scholars the school has, you're almost like a football player and you just get detention."

Jack said, "Aren't you going to ask?"

"Ask what?" Pacey handed over three of the notes. "The rest of these notes are bullshit, I'll throw them away for you."

"Joey wants me to sue the school, maybe I should hold onto the evidence," Jack said. "Neither of you have asked if I am."

Pacey said, "If there's something you want to tell me, you do it whenever."

Joey just squeezed Jack's arm. 

They all got through the day somehow. It was a pleasure seeing Jen and Dawson since they were the only ones who weren't miserable. They would be soon enough, she thought. 

She studied at home. At least she could get something done. She went to the door when she heard knocking and it was Jack. They walked outside without speaking. 

He said, "My dad and Andie and I got into a huge fight. It was helpful, in a way, it was clarifying. I think, I am gay, Joey, I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry for who you are," Joey said. She hugged him. "Is Andie okay?"

"She's not great. We had some tension before Dad arrived and he made it all worse but then he made it better," Jack said. "She went over to see Dawson."

"Are you okay?"

"Mostly," Jack said. "I'm glad you're not mad at me."

"We're totally broken up," Joey said, about to cry. She was trying to be funny and failing.

"I'm sorry," Jack said. 

Andie was at Dawson's, so Joey couldn't go there. She went to Jen's instead. She had friends, she thought. She had more than one place to go. She felt better in a way, just knowing she could go to Jen.

She went anyway because she really wanted a shoulder to cry on. 

Jen came downstairs when she knocked at the door. "I thought you might be Pacey," she said. "Grams won't mind you. Not that she minds Pacey."

"Aren't you two sinning?" Joey tried to smile.

"Grams trusts Pacey not to do anything in the house and he actually doesn't do anything in the house. He was here last night. His mother is, pardon my french, a cunt," Jen said. 

"Jack's gay," Joey said.

"Yeah," Jen said. "That's awful for you."

"But not for him," Joey said. 

"But he's not here, so you can just be miserable with me, I won't hold it against you," Jen said. 

"You're the best," Joey said, leaning into Jen and letting herself cry.

!! 

The furor around Capeside's first actual out and not just rumored gay guy didn't really die down that much over the next week. It made Jen like Jack even more how he put up with all of it. Jack said, "I get 5 notes a day in my locker. 4 say die fag, 1 says thank you for being so brave, and I swear sometimes that last one is in the same handwriting as one of the 4."

"Closet cases are the worst," Jen said.

"Speaking of, do you think Pacey's right that his older brother is gay?"

"You're going to start your gay dating with an older man who is also a cop?" Jen laughed.

"No, God, not at all. I just wondered. He's attractive," Jack said quickly. 

"I don't know," Jen said. "He hasn't dated the whole time I've been dating Pacey, so since September."

"You sound so sure," Jack said.

"We have sex in his bathroom, we did even before Pacey was living there. Certain supplies he keeps in the bathroom have stayed at the same levels," Jen said, winking. 

"If he's not dating, wouldn't some supplies be going down steadily?" Jack laughed. 

"I think he keeps that in the bedroom and I have never actually been in Doug's bedroom. Pacey says he dated girls in high school. Actually, his older sister said Doug dated Joey's older sister for a hot minute. I don't know what that means," Jen said.

"I dated Joey for a hot minute," Jack said. "Anyway, speaking of, why are you not with my ex or your boyfriend?"

"I don't spend all my time with just them," Jen said. "Okay, I mostly do. Maybe I'm trying to branch out. It was fun working with you on the movie."

"The New York City girl in you is thrilled to finally have a gay friend again," Jack said. 

"Ha, you're not like New York City gay boys," Jen said. "Which is fine, by the way, no pressure."

"Thanks," Jack said. They'd reached Pacey's locker, the unofficial meeting point before lunch. 

Andie came up, holding Dawson's hand, grinning manically. Andie said, "Okay, I have a very very good idea, I just need Joey here to tell everyone."

Jack said, "She hasn't told you, Dawson?"

"No, not at all," Dawson said. "I'm a little nervous."

Finally Pacey and Joey arrived and everyone waited while Pacey took forever at his locker. "Why did you tell him you were going to wait until we were in the cafeteria," Joey said. "It'll be another 5 years at this rate."

"Now, now, Josephine," Pacey said. 

When they were finally sitting down with their food, Andie said, "Okay, here's my idea. I am going to run for Junior class President and you, Joey, will be my running mate."

"The convict's daughter?" Joey sipped her water. 

"Whatever," Andie said. "You aren't your father."

"You both have my vote," Dawson said. "What do you need me to do?"

"I guess us three will be foot soldiers in your war," Jack said, indicating Pacey and Jen. 

He tapped his fingers on the table and Pacey had his arm around her and she could smell gross fries. Jen heard a rush in her ears and it was like she was dipped in mud, unable even to move to wade out. She remembered as if it were happening right then, a boy, the college boy and a fast food restaurant and he offered her more of his Coke which was really a rum and Coke and she was so very numb. Then out of nowhere she was back in his dorm room and it smelled of socks and he was on top of her and it hurt, it hurt, she didn't want to. 

She was back at the cafeteria and she felt like everyone was staring at her. Her stomach hurt. She stood up and heard Pacey saying gently, "Jen," and he was helping her get up and get out. 

She threw up in the trash can outside the women's room and then ran inside a stall. She was still shaking. 

She wasn't sure how long she'd been squatting in the corner in the bathroom when Joey came in. She said, "Hey, Jen."

"I'm fine," Jen said. She forced herself to stand. "I think I had some blood sugar thing or a cold or something."

"Yeah, that seems like exactly what happened," Joey said, frowning.

"Are you running for vice president?"

"Yeah, I agreed to after Dawson said I could go to Paris but I was wimping out for an election. And then we all realized you looked like, I guess we're calling it a blood sugar thing," Joey said.

"Come on, Joey," Jen said. "I'm fine." She went to the sink to wash her hands.

"You don't always have to say that," Joey said. 

Jen wanted to say that that wasn't true, but instead she just stared at her hands under the water at the sink. 

Joey said, "Can I give you a hug?"

"Sure," Jen said, turning off the water and drying her hands.

Joey was a fierce hugger. She said, "You're my best girlfriend, Jen Lindley, so I want you to know it's okay with me if you ever aren't fine."

"Okay," Jen said. She was fine. 

She braced herself and came outside. Pacey was gnawing at his thumb. He looked at her face and said, "You're fine."

She couldn't read his tone at all. She said, "Actually, yes."

"It was a blood sugar thing," Joey said, clearly skeptical. 

Pacey said, "Okay." He took Jen's hand and said, "I've got your bag, I'll walk the delicate flower to her next class."

"Or," Jen said, running to catch up with him, "I can show you how undelicate I am in the janitor's closet."

"Another day when I don't have a stupid presentation in Spanish," Pacey said. 

"After school," she said. 

"After school, we have a bathroom that doesn't smell like janitor," he said, kissing her nose sweetly. It was hard to miss the concern in his eyes, so she just ignored it. 

They had sex after school in the bathroom. She made him be on top, her legs around him, urging him in harder. She got off on all of it, as long as her eyes were open and on Pacey. She even came first. 

He said, "We're going for intense eye contact now."

"I like it sometimes," Jen said. She was so incredibly fine. She was sweaty so she turned on the shower and got in. 

Pacey said, "Why don't I get you a towel?"

The door opened and closed and then Pacey was behind her in the shower. He said, "Shit, that's hot." He turned down the water a little. Jen remembered she liked fitting her head right under his chin. She still liked it. 

He cleaned her up with Doug's surprisingly masculine smelling body wash. Then he turned off the water and helped her get out of the shower. 

Doug pounded on the door and she nearly fell on her ass because she jumped. "Come on, guys."

"We like to be clean, Doug," Pacey said. 

For whatever reason she let Pacey dry her hair and body and even get her dressed in the clothes she'd had on when they came in. She was numb again, moving where suggested. He said, "You're fine," like he meant it. 

Whatever rant Doug had he dropped when Pacey opened the door. It was probably something in Pacey's face, not Jen's. Pacey drove Jen home, "see, you can shower in privacy, Doug, I'm doing this for you," he said. 

He didn't ask her again if she were okay, he wasn't overly solicitous, she hated him for no rational reason. She wanted him gone.

She slept badly. 

Joey came by and walked with her to school. "I mentioned I'm fine, right?

 

Joey said, "A lot. You've said it a lot. Sometimes I just like walking with you. It's weird being single. I mean, I was single for a long time. And I really wasn't dating per se in France, but there was a guy. And then I came home and everyone wanted me to date Jack and we did. Now it's just me. No prospects on the horizon."

"Maybe you'll meet someone now that you're becoming political," Jen said. "Also, you're not single when you're 8 or 9, you're a kid."

"Pacey had a girlfriend for 10 minutes when he was 7," Joey said. "Some girl kissed him during recess, ran away and then came back and smacked him."

"A formative relationship," Jen said, smiling. "So what did I get signed up for the great campaign? I assume Andie has picked everyone's job for them."

"Actually, yes," Joey said. "Which I think is a good sign for our Junior class. Organization is a good thing. And you're helping Pacey make posters and then hang them. Jack and I are doing the design. Dawson is the campaign manager but I think he's just watching that movie with John Travolta over and over again."

"Sometimes Andie needs some managing. In a good way," Jen said. 

She went to her locker and found Pacey waiting for her. He gave her a candy bar, like he believed her blood sugar story. She went to all her classes, made it through lunch without another weird episode and overall, she was fine. She was totally fine. 

She'd just lost the ability to sleep through the night. 

!!

Dougie picked him up from school and instead of driving him home, he drove Pacey to a small house out on the beach. "Are you holding someone hostage out here, Doug? Is he cute?"

"You're not funny," Doug said, as he got out of the car. Pacey followed. The house had a porch, and an empty living room. Pacey could see two bedrooms and a bathroom standing between the living room and the kitchen. 

"This is our new home," Doug said.

"You spent so much on the deposit we don't have any furniture, I see," Pacey said. 

"No, I figured we could move in at the end of the month," Doug said. "You will actually have a bedroom to stomp off to."

"How can you afford this? Are you getting bribed to look the other way from petty crimes?"

"No," Doug said. "Don't worry, it's covered."

"How? Are you gonna make me work the weekends in a strip club that caters to older women?" Pacey walked to the smaller bedroom and looked around. It was bigger than what he'd had at home. 

Doug said, "Dad's helping me, okay? He's covering your portion."

"He won't talk to me," Pacey said. "But he'll throw money at you."

"He's trying, Pacey," Doug said. 

Pacey didn't even ask about his mother. 

Pacey did his work on the election, making posters from Joey's designs and hanging them around the school. He tried not to crowd Jen. Something in her had changed. It made him fucking anxious because he could never convince her he was worth hanging onto and she was going to dump him like yesterday's garbage. He tried not to think he didn't deserve her. 

The weekend before the candidates debate, Pacey took Jen by the house. "Doug already got me a bed, and by got me, I mean he went to the house and took the bed that was in my room. Also most of the furniture. I think my mom finally has her linen closet back."

"We should check," Jen said. "Can we set it on fire?"

"Gretchen lives in that house sometimes. And Kerry and her daughters," Pacey said. "Also, apparently, my father who's paying 1/3rd of the rent for this place."

"Whatever," Jen said. She sat down on his bed. "This is nicer than I thought."

"New mattress," Pacey said. He sat down next to her. "Wanna break it in?"

"I thought you'd never ask," she said, smiling. 

They had good sex. Jen was still doing that thing where she always looked at him, like she couldn't enjoy it unless she was sure it was Pacey. He didn't say anything. He should have, probably. He was going to have a lot of regrets about Jen, he thought. He touched her hair as she laid next to him. 

"Jack's worried about Andie," Jen said. 

"Dawson seems to be a little, too," Pacey said. 

"She has a lot of responsibilities," Jen said. 

"Dawson told me she's also in treatment for mental illness," Pacey said. "I think he thinks I have some kind of helpful knowledge because of the counseling gig. Which I don't. I mean, I know enough that he shouldn't be telling me."

Jen smiled. "He just wants your help, he loves her."

"Andie's getting help," Pacey said. "He found her prescription. She has a therapist." He had to change the subject before Jen thought he was talking about her. "I think she has a good chance to win the election."

"Chris and Abby don't have anything like a campaign. I mean, does anyone actually like Abby?"

"I'm sure someone does," Pacey said. "Not me or you, but someone."

"Chris reminds me of so many guys I knew in New York, he's just empty calories. No ambition, no moral code, just raw id and need," Jen said. 

"You make him sound so much more interesting than he is," Pacey said. 

Pacey ran his hand from her delightfully perky butt down her soft thigh. "If I don't say this enough, I love you, I think you're amazing, and you're one of the best people I know," Pacey said. 

"You're very nice to me," Jen said, something weird in her voice. "Thank you."

Then came the debate. Pacey sat with Jack, Jen, and Dawson in the front row. Things went bad quickly. Abby couldn't stop insinuating the McPhee family were nuts, Chris tried to bond and Andie was nearly beet red with anxiety. Eventually, Abby said, "We all know mental illness can be inherited and Andie's mother is so crazy --"

The guidance counselor stepped in, literally right in front of Abby. He said, "You will not continue speaking, Miss Morgan. Get out of here now."

Pacey looked at Dawson who was looking at Andie. Too late, Pacey thought. Dawson got up just as Andie bolted out the door. Joey took over the speechmaking, saying smart things in the newly confident home from Paris Joey way. Pacey was barely listening, he was watching Jen. She was looking forward at nothing. Pacey reached for her hand. Jack said, "I need to go after Andie."

"Go," Jen said. She looked over at Pacey. "This was a bad idea."

"Specificity, I need more," Pacey said.

"The election," Jen said, scrunching up her face. "I didn't mean anything else."

To Pacey's complete surprise, Andie and Joey won. They both looked overwhelmed and shellshocked. 

Naturally, Abby's super mature response was to make sure everyone in school knew that Andie's mother had been the driver in the car accident that killed Andie's brother. Now Andie's mother was nuts and Andie probably was, too. She got prescriptions at the local pharmacy. 

Pacey said, "She's a peach. A real peach."

"She's a pit of something," Jen said, leaning into him. He wondered if she'd gotten over wanting to dump him. 

!!!

Joey had her shifts at the Icehouse and homework and study group and art classes and next year she was committed to even more time with the class Vice-Presidency. She sighed as she trudged home. She really missed Paris. She missed having a boyfriend, not that she even really knew what having a boyfriend was like besides those two months with Dawson. She could admit she missed making out. Jack had been pretty good at the making out. But she was tougher than this, she thought. 

She was thinking about the graphic novels and comics that her teacher had shown her in class last week. The teacher said combining writing and drawing to tell her stories might be perfect for Joey. Joey couldn't get over how amazing Maus was. 

There was a man at her door. He turned and it was her father. "Dad?" She hated herself for sounding happy.

"That's right," he said, keeping his distance. "Joey, I got paroled."

"Congrats," Joey said. "Congratulations, you served your time." She went past him to her room. She closed the door and locked it.

She woke up and he was still there. Bessie was fawning over him like he was the second coming. It was awful seeing him holding Alexander. She liked it, too. She went straight to Dawson's. 

"He's really home," Dawson said. 

"He acts like he belongs there," Joey said. "No, he doesn't. He's tentative and cautious and he doesn't push but I hate him."

"And you love him," Dawson said. 

"How could he do the things he did and actually love us?" Joey got up to pace. 

"He made mistakes, a lot of them," Dawson said. "So you have no space for forgiveness?"

"Should I? He cheated on my mom and he dealt drugs. And he gets out of jail, and now I have to write off all the things he did?" Joey heard her voice rising and went back to hating herself. 

Dawson said, "Joey, you don't have to do anything. But he's in your house now."

"Maybe I'll pull a Pacey," Joey said. 

"You don't have a brother to run to," Dawson said. 

"I can't sleep here?" Joey tried to bat her eyelashes. 

"Nope," Dawson said, smiling. "If you really need to, of course you can, but I don't think you really need to."

"I wouldn't want to upset Andie," Joey said. 

"She wouldn't be upset," Dawson said, frowning. "I'm worried about her, did I tell you I'm worried about her?"

"She seems fine to me, mostly," Joey said. 

"I worry I'm projecting, I know Andie has problems she's getting treated so every deviation from her norm, which I don't know that well, I assume she's about to flip out. Then I worry she can sense my worry and it makes her worry and therefore she gets worse because I worried she was getting worse," Dawson said. "I know it sounds ridiculous."

"It sounds like you really care about her," Joey said.

"She's just, she's really aggressive about sex lately. She wants to do it before we even study and then she's all over me," Dawson said. 

"Before you even study? That doesn't sound like Andie," Joey said. 

"Don't joke," Dawson said. 

"I'm not," Joey said. "Check with Jack, he loves her, too."

"Yeah," Dawson said. 

Jen climbed in the window. "Hey, party time. What are our plans for Saturday?"

Joey said, "Not going near my father, the recent parolee."

"Not worrying about my girlfriend and letting her have a day to chill alone," Dawson said. "And you?"

"Pacey and Doug are moving into that new place today. If I go see them, they'll make me help move," Jen said. 

"Sounds like movie day," Dawson said. 

Dawson did a great movie day. Joey and Jen took over the bed and Dawson sat on the floor and somehow Dawson picked the exact right movies that neither Jen or Joey freaked out over anything. Jen, despite her 500 claims that she was just fine, was actually pretty delicate. 

"Please don't make me go home," Joey said. 

"You have to," Dawson said. "Think about Alexander."

"Do I have to?"

Jen said, "You don't have to, but you will at some point."

"Go forth, Vice President," Dawson said. 

Joey groaned as she went down the ladder. 

!!

Pacey kept hearing from Dawson about Andie's behavior. "I can't diagnose her, man," he said.

"I'm just worried about her," Dawson said. "She's such a strong person and she's been so upset since the election but she doesn't express it all. I feel like she needs me and I don't know how to be give her what she needs."

"It's not your job to be her buttress, flying or not, it's your job to be a teenager and love her," Pacey said. 

"Why do I go to you for advice?"

"Force of habit," Pacey said. He smiled at the guy, though, he understood being concerned about someone you couldn't help. 

He did check in with Jack. "Are you as worried about Andie as Dawson?"

"Honestly," Jack said. "More. I've seen this before. I think, it's serious." He slammed the locker door shut. 

Pacey had nothing except the names of the people at the counseling center. He tried and then he went home. Jen was already on his porch. "Study date?"

She nodded. "Let's start with biology."

They went to bed, had sex, laughed a little. He kissed her forehead and held her hand against his chest. "I love you," he said.

"I love you, too," she said. She sat up quickly and started getting dressed. 

"Maybe next time not so perfunctory," Pacey said. 

"That wasn't perfunctory," she said. "Am I expressing my emotions in the wrong way again?"

"I don't want to fight," Pacey said. "Sorry."

Jen's face softened. "I'm sorry. I'm going to go home, I'll see you tomorrow."

He said "I love you" again and she kissed his cheek as she left. 

Pacey rubbed his face and stared at the ceiling. He was screwing up somehow and he didn't know how to fix her. He didn't know how to fix them. 

He woke up to the phone ringing. It was Dawson who started by apologizing for calling so late, and waking Doug. 

"Doug has the night shift again, you only woke up me. What's wrong, is someone hurt?"

Dawson started talking, a mile a minute, and only Pacey's counseling call center training made him understand what he was saying. Andie had had a crisis and Dawson and Jack had had to talk her down. Pacey said, "You did good, you helped her."

"But what happens in the morning? What happens tomorrow? She's not getting better," Dawson said, sadly.

"That's why it's up to Andie's dad and therapists to take the next step. And you got her there, so that could happen," Pacey said. 

"I don't know if I'm strong enough to be there for her," Dawson said. 

"You're being stupid," Pacey said. "You clearly are because you're calling me after she's okay and not five hours ago."

"You're stupid," Dawson said, fondly. 

In the morning, Dawson called again, this time he did wake up Doug. Pacey turned on his listening skills, much earlier than he wanted to. Dawson said Mr. McPhee had decided to send Andie to a residential treatment program that afternoon. "She'll be there all summer."

"It's a good place, right?"

"Does it matter? Why can't she get help here?"

Pacey looked at the ceiling. He said, "Because you're 15 and love doesn't cure mental illness. I wish it did, because that would be awesome."

"He's taking her away from her support system, no Jack, no friends, no me," Dawson said. 

"Because that's not enough to help her. Remember all that stuff I told you about actual brain scans and chemistry? You don't think she needs a support system to cure her if she's got a broken leg?" Pacey rubbed his stomach and wondered if Jen would call. He would miss Andie over the summer. 

"I hate your counseling center crap," Dawson said. 

"Maybe instead of listening to shit you hate, you should go spend time with your girlfriend before it's time to leave," Pacey said. "She'll be back and she'll be better."

Dawson barely said goodbye. Pacey rolled over and called Jen. She seemed to be in a good mood even after Pacey told her about Andie. He felt a brief sense of relief. Jen went on about Joey's ambivalence about her dad and her dad's big plans to put the family on more stable financial grounds.


	4. Chapter 4

Jen sat on Dawson's bed. He was miserable. "She's gone," Dawson said. "I wish I could have done more."

"You couldn't have. You're a smart, sweet, teenage boy, you can't cure mental illness. You can just be there for her." Jen felt like throwing up but she wasn't going to leave Dawson like this. She rubbed his back.

"She was so sad and desperate. I know it's right, but I can't believe she's just gone. She needs the help, I know it, I do, but I don't know how I get through the rest of the year without her," Dawson said. 

"You absolutely can because she will be back," Jen said. "This is how she gets better. Which is not your responsibility."

"I love her," Dawson said. 

"That's why it hurts," Jen said. She rubbed his back again. "I'm leaving now, so you put on a comfort movie and have ice cream with your mom. Maybe ET?"

"Shut up," Dawson said, almost smiling. 

She took the ladder down and went to her own house. She sat on the steps because it was too hard to move farther than that. 

Pacey biked up and he had that face. That stupid face. He was always so compassionate, so very very caring. She felt cold and numb. She said, "I can't do this anymore."

Pacey got off his bike and just looked at her. He was actually angry with her. He said, "What?"

"I'm breaking up with you," she said, standing up. "You make me feel bad, lately you make me feel like I'm just some sad pathetic person you are oh so nobly tolerating. I can't do this anymore. I don't want to."

His jaw was clenched. She wondered if he would curse her out. His eyes were wet. He said, "I'm not, Jen, I won't do this twice. If you really mean this, we're done. If you really want to break up over that shit you just said, I won't take you back when you realize what you've done. You don't get to hurt me like this twice."

"I really mean it, and you're being a condescending shit which is exactly my point," Jen said. "We're done."

"Fuck you," he said. She'd made him cry. He got back on his bike and sped away. 

Jen went inside and lay on her bed. She felt better and it was the worst thing in the world. 

!!

Word spread fast. Grams apparently told Dawson about the break up when Dawson came over to see Jen. Dawson confirmed with Pacey and then told Jack and then Joey. 

Joey hunted down Jack. She said, "Our study group is very fractured."

"Yes," Jack said. "Why are you talking to me about it?" 

"Pacey and Jen are the ones who broke up, and I found you before I found Dawson. I know you're both upset about Andie," Joey said. "Here's my idea. Let's split study group. I'll take Pacey to the Icehouse for our finals studying, you and Dawson can go to Jen's."

"Wait, why do I get stuck with the ones who didn't score super high on the PSAT?" Jack grinned. "Shouldn't we be splitting up you and Pacey to spread the brain around?"

"None of you are stupid. Honestly, I'm having a hard time with what Jen did so I'd rather not, if we can just have this break. You know?"

"Where Dawson and I completely accept it?" 

"You like Jen more than you like Pacey," Joey said, smiling. "You and Dawson have things to bond over."

"Fine, I'll spread the word for you since that was clearly the point of telling me," Jack said. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. "It'll be fine, Joey."

She wasn't completely sure. She went home and tried to study while Bessie and her Dad debated how to redo the Icehouse. Joey tried very hard not to interrupt, not to ask why they were fixing something that wasn't broken, and how they could afford any of this. She wanted her dad to stop trying to be part of their lives. It was an awful thought. He was just doing what he could to make things easier. 

She'd been staring at the same page for ten minutes. She couldn't listen to any of this. She said, "Hey, can Pacey study at the Icehouse in two days for our finals?"

"Of course," he dad said. "Of course."

"Great," Joey said. She gathered up her books, and left. If she went to Dawson's, she might run into Jen and she wasn't up for that at all. She went to Pacey's instead. 

"Can I study here?"

Doug said, "Pacey won't be home for another hour from his counseling thing, but sure, take his room until he gets home. I'm watching a movie and I won't turn it down."

"I promise not to interfere with your 500th viewing of Hello Dolly," Joey said. 

Even with Doug's permission, she felt like she was intruding being in Pacey's room. It was neater than she expected. If she'd been dumped, she thought she'd make a mess of her room. Of course, she had been dumped, but her relationships with Dawson and Jack hadn't been like Pacey and Jen. Also, she'd dumped Dawson, sort of. She spread out on the floor and started studying. 

She hadn't been paying attention to the time so she was shocked when Pacey came in. He said, "Did you already have dinner, or did you want some with me?"

"I ate at home," Joey said. "Sorry to take your room."

Pacey shrugged. "I'll be in soon enough, we can inaugurate the new study group post break up. Yes, I heard from Jack about your new exciting plan."

"I should go home soon, though," Joey said. "Just, you know, home."

"I don't know, Jo," Pacey said. "I know your dad's back and that's it. I'm not sure why you picked me in the divorce, but it wasn't because we've been talking so much."

"I didn't pick you in the divorce," Joey said. "We do talk. You took me to the prison to see my Dad a few months ago, remember?"

"I didn't eavesdrop on your yelling," Pacey said. 

"I was yelling, so I don't think it's eavesdropping. Anyway, it's just, it's kind of unbearable. Bessie acts like he never did anything wrong and she's just glad to have him back and he keeps making these plans about our future and I don't trust him at all."

"You just want to," Pacey said. He shrugged. "I'm starving, sorry."

She wrapped up her studying. When she came out, Pacey was staring blankly with a half eaten plate of spaghetti in front of him. She said, "Food goes on the fork, fork goes in your mouth, that's what I tell Alexander."

"You're hilarious," Pacey said. 

Joey ruffled his hair and left. 

She went to Jen's. She couldn't let these things fester. Jen was her friend and Joey shouldn't waste her friends. Jen answered the door and said, "Are you here to yell at me?"

"I don't know," Joey said. "I am a little mad at you. But I know it's not my place."

"It's your place," Jen said. "I'm an awful person who hurt your friend for no good reason."

"You had a reason," Joey said. "I'm mad at you but I don't want you condemning yourself out of proportion to what you've done. You didn't stab him or run him over with your truck."

"Just metaphorically," Jen said. She flopped down on the chair on the porch. "I was awful."

"But you had your reasons, right?"

"Sure," Jen said. "Pacey deserves better than me."

"That's not a reason to break up with him and I'm sure you had a better reason. Please tell me you did."

"What if I don't? Are we not friends?" Jen looked like she might cry.

"We are friends, whatever your reason," Joey said. She knew she meant it as she said it. "I'm sorry. You don't need to tell me anything. You're my friend, no matter what."

"Why?"

"Because," Joey said. She sat down next to Jen. "Who else do I have?"

"Dawson? Pacey? Jack? Andie?"

"Jack already likes you better," Joey said. "Jen, I'm serious. You're important to me."

Jen said, "You're not as smart as people think you are."

!! 

Grams was remarkably sanguine about the new, reduced study group. Jen kept waiting to get an earful about breaking up with Pacey for no reason. Grams hadn't asked Jen for a reason which was even more irritating. She didn't want to explain because she didn't have a decent explanation but she wanted to angrily say she didn't want to talk about it. 

So Jen sat down with Dawson and Jack. Dawson said, "Can't we call in sick for finals?"

Jack said, "Maybe I can call in gay."

"I wish that would work," Jen said. "I'd do it."

"Except you're not gay," Dawson said. 

"I could be queer at least," Jen said. "Or bisexual."

"They won't accept any of those as excuses," Dawson said. "Come on, let's go by subject."

"It's like you're Andie's boyfriend," Jack said, smiling.

Dawson frowned. "I am. I am her boyfriend. I know you were joking, I just miss her." Dawson opened his book. "We're all in the same English class, so let's start with English."

Jen concentrated. She concentrated and participated and didn't think about her horrible mistakes. She had made so many horrible mistakes and she couldn't take any of them back. 

!! 

Joey sat down at the table across from Pacey. "Time to study, Witter. We are going to ace our finals."

"Do I really care?" Pacey sounded predictably down. "Thanks for choosing me in the study group schism of 1999, but I think you got the short end of the very battered and useless stick." 

"Nope," Joey said. "I didn't. I refuse to accept your self-pity. I'm not failing and you owe me so you are not allowed to fail." 

"Fine," Pacey said. "I guess I can still show my parents they're wrong about me." 

They studied, actually studied, which was nothing like Joey ever expected from Pacey before this year. 

Except as Joey mind wandered for a moment to why she and Bessie had let Dad renovate the Ice House and what was going to happen to them when this was done, if it ever was done. 

They'd made it halfway through their respective courses and study guides when Pacey said, "Do you smell smoke?"

She did. She looked around and put together the crack she'd heard, the smoke, it was all something bad. Pacey grabbed all their books and said, "Joey, come on." 

"One sec," Joey said. She tried to find her dad but instead there was just so much smoke. "Dad? Dad?" 

She started coughing, her eyes watering. "Dad," she screamed. 

She thought she heard an answer but then she was being grabbed around the waist and pulled away. She tried to scream but she had no breath. She couldn't see anything and she couldn't walk and someone was pulling her free. 

"Dad?" She coughed as they were free of the building. She couldn't breathe right, her throat felt like knives. 

"It's me, Pacey," he said. "Joey, are you okay?"

"Where's my dad?"

"I don't know, I was pretty focused on just you," he said. 

There were people everywhere. The firemen, police, someone pulled Joey to the back of ambulance. Someone fussed over her and she tried to push them away. She felt Pacey's hand on her shoulder. "What about my dad?" She kept repeating it. 

Finally she saw him. She ran into his arms. He hugged her and then let her go. He said, "Joey, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." 

Then her dad walked over to Chief Witter. He started talking to Pacey's dad. Joey heard the words but couldn't believe them.

"You did it again? You were dealing again?"

"I'm sorry," her father said. "I don't have a good reason. But now they're trying to kill me and they almost killed you." 

"How fucking noble of you," Joey said. She turned away before Chief Witter got the cuffs out. She sat down next to Pacey and started to cry. 

!!

It was funny, absolutely hilarious to Pacey that the first time he saw his father since the night he ran away was when he was arresting Joey's dad. He would have said something to Jen about irony and did Alanis Morissette ruin the real meaning of irony, was it really like rain on your wedding day? But Pacey didn't want to talk to Jen right at the moment. 

Pacey sat outside the burning wreck, on one side of Joey. She was crying in a steady flow. He rubbed her knee pointlessly. Dawson finally arrived and sat on the other side of Joey. She leaned on Dawson and Pacey felt a selfish sense of relief. Joey talked to Dawson in sobbing words, but she put her hand over Pacey's on her knee and squeezed. Like she was relying on both of them. Pacey was definitely inadequate to anything Joey needed. But he couldn't exactly stand up and brush her off. 

Worse, while he was trapped by Joey's pain, his father walked up to him. He said, "Pacey, can we talk?"

"No," Pacey said, looking over at Joey. The traitor let go of his knee and grabbed his elbow to push him up. Fucking Potter and her dead mother complex. Pacey said, "Fine."

His father said, "I'm sorry how things shook out this spring."

"When I ran away and you never apologized and this is the first time you're even trying to talk to me?" Pacey's voice broke somewhere in there but he was ready to barrel on in anger. 

"Yeah," his father said. "I'm sorry for what I said. I know we're not your perfect parents."

"God, no," Pacey said.

"We're better than some," his father said.

"Yeah, that's a lower bar than you think," Pacey said. "That's not an excuse or a reason or justification."

"No," his father said. 

"So you want me to move back? Because I won't. Not until Mom apologizes."

His father said nothing and Pacey knew immediately it would never happen, she wouldn't even have let his dad say those things if she'd been able to control him. He'd been dumped for no damn good reason by the first girl he'd ever loved which still hurt like she'd cut out his heart and rubbed salt in the open wound, he'd nearly died in a fire and now he knew like he knew 2 + 2 = 4 that he would never really have a mother and never really had. 

He stomped off crying, trying to cover his face.

He knew Joey and Dawson wouldn't come after him, they had their own emotional mega crises to navigate. It was funny, though, to look up when he stopped and find, of all people, Grams. She said, "Dawson called me and mentioned you probably needed a little comfort." She got out of her car. She said, "I found you easier than I thought."

Pacey was trying to think of something really witty, he hardly wanted Grams telling Jen he was a complete wreck but it was like the first night he ran away. He was just a big fucking mess. 

After a few minutes, Grams said, "I'm going to drive you home. I assume you and your brother have some kind of tea I can make." 

Pacey nodded. When he got home he went straight to his room. He said, "Hey, thanks, just come get me when you have the tea." 

He must have fallen straight asleep because he woke up with the sunrise and a note stuck to his forehead. Doug had called him in sick to school. 

The truly shitty thing was that they all still had to go school and take their finals. For some inane reason Pacey couldn't even imagine, they all ended up at his locker. Even Jen. She even talked to him, as part of the group. She said, "You'd think we'd get an emotional hardship excuse."

Jack said, "They should just give us the grades we had before the last two weeks."

"In lieu of that," Pacey said. "Let's go forth and make sure we never ever have to be sophomores again. Test this year into oblivion, every right answer crushes it that much further fucking down."

Dawson said, "That was oddly inspiring."

"Agreed," Jack said, as he left. 

"Thanks to your pep talk," Joey said, as she walked home with him after their finals for whatever reason. "I think I aced everything."

"I think you aced everything because even the second worst day of your life couldn't stop Joey Potter from acing her exams," Pacey said. "I think I did okay. I don't know. I just kept thinking fuck it, fuck it, I'm the only one who cares how I do, and I want out. So. Why are walking home with me?"

"Doug called, he wanted to meet me," Joey said. "Nothing to do with my dad," she said, quietly. 

Instead Doug had them sit down on the sofa. He handed them both train tickets to New York City for a week later. "Ta da! Joey, you already had your internship lined up, but didn't know where you were going to be able to do it because you had to stay in New York City. Well, you're staying with Gretchen. You don't need to pay her, and she's got the extra food covered." 

Joey actually smiled. Pacey said, "What internship?" He should have done that. But he was too worried about getting dumped and getting dumped to make anything happen. 

"My art teacher arranged it, it's a collection she worked on and they have a budget for an intern. It's not a big budget, I don't think I'm even earning a pittance, but it's going to be amazing."

Pacey said, "Why do I have a ticket?"

Doug said, "Dad thought you might want to get out of town. He thought this before the fire, by the way. I might have mentioned something about you getting dumped. He has a friend who runs a group home slash shelter in New York City. You are their new intern! You're also making a pittance, and living with Gretchen."

Pacey looked numbly at the ticket. He nodded. Sure, he'd take anything to go anywhere but here. "Am I supposed to say thank you to him?"

Joey pressed her lips together. Doug said, "You don't have to."

He spent his last week before New York City idly biking around Capeside. Apparently, he'd even lost Dawson in the divorce since whenever he went by, he saw Jen and Joey up in Dawson's room. 

"Should have made more friends," he said, the day before he left as he pulled up on his bike outside his place. 

"Sorry," Jen said. She was sitting on the stairs. "Did you get your grades? I got 3 B+s, 1 B, 2 As."

"We're talking now?" Pacey stayed his safe distance away. 

"I'm trying," Jen said. "I don't want to get back together but I don't want you to hate me or everyone choosing sides."

"I'm allowed to care about what you want now?"

Jen sniffled which he was shit at resisting. She said, "Yes."

"5 As, 1 B+," Pacey said. "Aced all my finals."

"That's so great," Jen said, with a watery smile. "Dawson said you got an internship."

"My dad got it for me, in New York," Pacey said. "Let's count these 50 words as our start, Jen, I'm really tired."

"Okay," she said, getting up. "Have a good summer."

!!

Jen took up knitting. She also took up sitting on her bed, staring at the wall while she knitted. She could just zone out, a brand new skill for her life so far. 

It would have been her whole summer, but Dawson and Jack kept intruding. Dawson would come into her house like it was his own, and come into her room and say, "It's summer. Let's hang out in my room watching movies with fans aimed at our faces."

"Do I have to?"

"I'll let you bring your knitting," Dawson said. 

"Okay then," Jen said. 

Weird things in Dawson's pick of movies made her tense or zone out. She would have thought it would be the sexual assault, or the sexual assault dressed up as seductive love. Instead it was dim shots of industrial beds, or lingering shots of diners and fries. Jen covered. She could acknowledge to herself she was remembering something awful but she wasn't letting anyone in on that. She didn't need to, she could get better without being coddled and pitied. 

Dawson whined about missing Andie. "I know it's good for her, I know it, but I really miss her."

"And she misses you as you can tell from her emails and weekly phone calls," Jen said. "I know it's not in person contact."

"I like in person contact," Dawson said. "But I can wait."

"Because now that you've started having sex, you can totally wait another three months before having it again," Jen said. 

"Actually, yes," Dawson said. "I can control my baser urges."

Jen laughed at him. 

If Dawson wasn't luring her out to see movies, Jack was luring her out to hang out in his empty house. At least at first. Jen said, "Your mother's in an institution, your sister's in an institution, no one's there to make sure you wake up. You should move in here. You can have the Pacey memorial room."

"Why is the room memorializing Pacey?" Jack looked ready to accept. 

"It's just the room he stayed in when he slept over because his life was a nightmare," Jen said. "Not when I caused his life to be a nightmare, when his family did."

Jack said, "If Grams agrees, I'll take it."

"Grams told me to ask you," Jen said.

So then Jack would insist she wake up when he was up so they could have coffee together, he made her watch TV in the evening with Grams and would just keep talking to her. They were all so eager to keep talking to her. Like none of them judged her for ending the first real and probably the best relationship she'd ever had for no real reason, hurting Pacey for no damn reason. 

Jack had the idea for all of them to sign up for a computer course in the morning. "Let's face it, we are not the geniuses in this group, we need to get our advantages where we can."

"We're not putting Pacey in the genius division, are we?" Dawson frowned and then glanced at Jen like he was worried about hurting her. 

"Pacey did better than all of us at the PSAT, so he counts for something," Jack said. "Dawson, stop treating Jen like she's going to fall apart if you say the P word."

"I wish the P word was penis," Jen said. "Or pulchritude, that's a fun one."

Dawson said, "Fine. I'm trying to be courteous to Jen's pain."

"Please, I shouldn't be spared," Jen said. "I should be reminded every day what an asshole I am. You're Pacey's best friend, Dawson, you're failing."

Jack sighed. "Jen, get over yourself. You're 16, you're going to make mistakes and your relationships will end, and you'll hurt people and people will hurt you and life goes on."

"But I think we can all agree that I broke up with Pacey badly," Jen said.

"I've decided to let Pacey be upset about that one," Dawson said. 

Now she had to keep herself together to go to class, to have Dawson or Jack or both constantly around her, studying and talking to her. At night she closed the door to her bedroom and curled up into a tight ball, trying to sleep. 

She wrote Pacey letters and burned them in the fireplace. They were all the same. She was sorry she was so sorry he was right she was drowning she was lost all she wanted to be was saved. She loved him.

One afternoon she ran into Chris Wolfe and actually stopped to talk to him when he said hi. He told her about a party that night. "Didn't you use to party in New York City? That's why you were sent up here, right?"

Jen shook her head. He was empty stale popcorn. She went to the party anyway, but she made Jack come with her. She could definitely still party, but the more drunk she got, the less she wanted anyone to touch her and eventually, Jack was holding her up as they walked home and she might have been crying. 

In the morning, Jack said, "Let's not do that again."

"Sure," Jen said. "Next time I take Dawson."

She didn't go to more parties, though, the hangover physically and in her psyche were more than she could really handle. 

All three of them got an A in the computer class. Dawson said, "Pacey and Joey are home next week."

"Have you heard from them?"

"Both of them," Dawson said. "Pacey has discovered what I can only call an odd obsession with cooking, Joey is reading a lot of weird graphic novels."

Jack said, "But they're doing well? I'm asking because if Jen asks she'll start going on about how she's the wicked witch of ruining Pacey's life."

"They're fine," Dawson said, looking at Jen. 

!!

Gretchen picked them both up at Grand Central Station, with a big hug for Pacey and a pat on the arm for Joey. "Thank you again for taking us in," Joey said.

"Thanks again for taking Dad's money to let me stay with you," Pacey said. 

Gretchen's apartment was small and in Brooklyn. There was one bedroom, Gretchen's, a converted sort of closet that Pacey claimed as his own immediately ("flashback to home!"), leaving Joey with the couch. Joey hung up her nice skirts and shirts for her five mornings a week at the collection she was supposed to help catalog. "It's modern art," she said to Gretchen. Pacey was already asleep. "Really modern art, like paintings, comic books, graphic novels. Some of it's only ten years old, but some fancy rich guy says it's an art collection and therefore it is."

"So you will?"

"Print labels, look up ISBN numbers, get coffee, I expect. Then I'll call it something more exciting like archiving materials assistant," Joey said. 

"You are ready for college applications and resumes," Gretchen said.

Pacey was working at a center that housed gay runaways and had other programs. He was also doing paperwork and occasionally shadowing one of the social workers there. Pacey came home from his first day talking about making lunch.

"Making lunch?" Gretchen rolled her eyes.

"Actually, it was awesome. From 11 am to 1:30 pm, I got to help out in the kitchen. Making a meal for 60 kids and some of the staff, it was pretty cool. The cook let me chop and showed me knife techniques. When I get home, I am going to cook the crap out of our dinners at chez Dougie, I swear to God," Pacey said. 

"I got paid sub minimum wage to read Love and Rockets which is an incredible comic book about hispanic punk rockers and so much more," Joey said.

"Sounds just like your kind of book," Pacey said.

"Actually, it is," Joey said. 

Most of the time, Joey, Pacey and Gretchen were ships passing in the night. Joey had to leave early and then she'd go to the library or one of the bookshops and comic book shops she stumbled into and come out with something she had to read. Then she started going to the MOMA, copying art like she had in the Louvre. She'd come home to food in the fridge Pacey had made, which was getting surprisingly more tasty, and tuck herself into her couch with a book. She was reading the most amazing poets one of her coworkers had steered her towards. It was like Paris in a way. Except this time she was abandoning Bessie with no source of income and even more public humiliation. Joey was a good sister, she thought bitterly. 

Once a week or so, Gretchen would take Pacey and Joey to some party with her friends or people she knew. It was the usual parade of drinking and marijuana she would have seen in Capeside but sometimes there were other drugs and a lot less homogeneity in the composition of the people. Joey would get nervous, sip one beer and make sure to keep Gretchen in sight so she could make sure to get home. She talked sometimes to some people but mostly she was just Joey Potter, not so great with new people. 

The Witters thrived at parties. Joey knew Pacey was hurting and sad but he'd charm the crap out of basically everyone he met. He talked to the wallflowers in the corner, or that one girl who kept laughing and twirling in the middle of the room. She'd see him getting into vigorous discussions about sports and, once, Jane Eyre, with groups of guys. 

Then he'd get laid. Invariably, he would get laid. He'd be socializing and then Joey would see him start smiling at one of the girls. He was a good guy about it, the girls were always sober and clearly wanted to. Pacey and the girl of the week were hardly the only ones having sex at these parties. Joey made out with some guy from Connecticut Gretchen introduced her to once. 

Joey got lost at a party in the middle of the summer, turning in circles around some twisty house and it didn't help she was already a little drunk. There were just so many people and so little light and she couldn't find anything to help her figure out where the door outside might be. She ducked down a hallway and quietly opened the door and stopped. It was Pacey on the bed, she realized, having sex with some girl who was really enjoying it. She closed the door quietly but she could still see him, his bare butt, the motion. 

After that she made very sure she didn't run into Pacey while he was with whatever girl, because she couldn't forget seeing that. 

It occurred to her, nearing the end of the summer, she'd never had decent sex. Pacey was having it over and over again and Gretchen certainly had and Dawson and Andie had and Jen, too. She diagnosed herself with the disease of the over achiever, even in this one stupid regard. 

She talked to Jen once a week. She made sure to do it when Pacey wasn't around. "You've only made out with one guy this summer?" Jen laughed.

"In comparison to you?"

"Never compare yourself to me, Jo," Jen said, suddenly serious. "And yes, I haven't, you know, nothing's been happening back here in Capeside."

"I guess I just want, I want something real. At the very least I would like to have really good sex," Joey said.

"That's not a bad goal," Jen said. "But it's not a singular goal."

"I know," Joey said. "Anyway, tell me about your classes."

"My one class. In computers. Dawson and Jack and I are learning a lot," Jen said. 

Sometimes she and Pacey had dinner together. Pacey said, "So, how's Jen?"

"She's fine. But you're my friend and she's probably my best friend and I don't want to be in the middle," Joey said. 

"You've said that 800 times," Pacey said. He pushed the food on his plate around. "Well, I'm fine, too."

"Totally," Joey said. "You've had tons of sex this summer so you are absolutely fine."

"Tons of sex," Pacey said, putting his fork down. "I haven't had tons of sex, Jo."

"Once a week for most of the summer," Joey said. "Are you going to keep that up when we get home in two weeks?"

"Yeah, Jo, that's the big plan," Pacey said, glaring at her. "Why are you so mad at me?"

"I know you're hurt, I just want you to, I want you --"

"Act like you want me to?" He rolled his eyes. 

"I don't know," she said. She flounced off to Pacey's room. He didn't even try to get in. She fell asleep in his bed. 

She woke up as he got into the bed. "Get out, Jo," he said. 

"Sorry I was an asshole. You're not doing anything wrong," Joey said. She shuffled herself over against the wall. 

"Thanks, Joey, I knew that, get out of my bed," he said. 

She kissed him. He opened his mouth a little and kissed her back. Then he said, "Now you really need to get out."

"No," Joey said. "Please." 

"We're not doing this," Pacey said. He ran his hands down her side and pulled her closer. 

"Just once," Joey said. 

"No," he said. "Come on, Joey."

"You want to, I want to, we just do it once," Joey said. 

Pacey kissed her again, groped her breast. He said, "You never ever tell Jen. Never."

"Promise," she said. 

He was amazing, it was amazing. Apparently those two times with Jack had been not so much awkward as average and maybe not good. She couldn't even breathe, she felt so good. 

When she was trying to recover her ability to move, Pacey was getting off the bed and throwing away the condom in the bathroom. He came back and held the door open. "Come on, Jo," he said, kindly. 

"Got it," she said. She sat up and gathered her clothes. "Is Gretchen asleep?"

"She's not home yet," Pacey said. "So it's just you and me who can never ever tell Jen. Okay?"

"Absolutely," she said. "This is, this is just the sort of thing people do in the movies and you're like, why did you do that? How could you not resist? But now I get it."

Pacey shrugged. "Okay," Joey said. "We're not talking about it."

"That wasn't really talking about it," Pacey said. "Let's just say not a mistake, not the greatest idea."

"Got it," Joey said. "Got it."

A week later, they hugged Gretchen goodbye and got on the train back to Capeside. 

Pacey looked over at her sketchpad. He said, "Are you doing a comic book?"

"Not really," Joey said. "It's a challenge to me, like a project. Telling a story in four panels of pictures and words, but not using comic book conventions, like speech bubbles. Not that that isn't art and important, too. But I want to sort of deconstruct the idea of it, separating out words and art."

"Okay," Pacey said. "That sounds interesting. I'm going to read this Batman comic until I fall asleep and you wake me up when we're home."

"Did you finish the summer reading?"

"Yes," Pacey said. "I read 'em on the subway back and forth from work. I'm good. So, Batman."

"Go to sleep," Joey said. "Junior year right around the corner."

 

TO BE CONTINUED.


End file.
